We Checked Out the Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Whaaaat? Y'all out of Nintendo jail?

It looks like a good sequel, but that under performance of the Switch with the low resolution and under 30fps framerate... its sad. More so because most critics will completely overlook this and give the game a perfect score.

Man, it sure would be nice to watch videos on GB, but the new player just doesn't work for me.

I loved seeing this. Just getting me more excited for the game. Grubb asked good questions.

Free at last, free at last! Breathe that fresh Nintendo air, dudes!

Love this stuff and great coverage guys. Video player didn't work but the download link did.

Thanks for the impressions! Great format with Dan playing, Jeff watching him play live and Grubb asking questions!

I'm glad to see they added recipe book.

That was one of my complaints in the first game. I didn't remember any of the required ingredients so I just stuck to 1 or 2 dishes I know and random crap that came out of the pot from throwing in whatever I had on hand.

The editing in this video is ridiculous, but I know Jan had to work with Nintendo's rules and had to re-edit it. Their restrictions seem so silly given we will be playing it in 3 weeks.

@goosemunch: totally agree. I hope they do a lot more Quality of Life improvements like that.

@av_gamer: I never beat the first game so I tried going back to it on the Switch the other day and the framerate made me quit playing right away. All the 60FPS performance modes on PS5 and my new gaming PC might have spoiled me.

@av_gamer: Man, performance issues are something I wish outlets would nail down an objective stance on. It either matters all the time or it doesn't matter. Its annoying seeing some games get dinged for performance issues and others not get it. Days Gone from IGN, for example, got hit hard for those issues while Jedi Survivor just got a 9 even though the review cites issues on every platform. There are certain foundations in the review process that I do believe need to have parity and performance is one of them.

Skyward Sword was in fact not The Wind Waker in the sky...the sky had almost nothing going on there for most of the game (hell it could've been a overworld menu, Skyloft was the only thing of substance) and was a huge disappointment. This however seems to be very substantial in its sky world and the entire items and building system just looks insane, I can't wait.

@dan_citi: Yep. My big knock on Skyward Sword (well maybe one of them) was how empty the sky was. The islands were just...nothing. People knock the sailing in Wind Waker, but each island had puzzles and secrets and mini-dungeons.

@av_gamer: Yep. No doubt the game will be fun - which is what matters most - but the hitchiness of it will undeniably detract.

Also, Nintendo have been despicable arseholes in recent weeks. Mainstream media won't be allowed to talk about that for fear of losing access at the time of this major release.

@spacemanspiff00: It's a good point, well made. Though the extent to which such issues detract will vary from game to game - and also from reviewer to reviewer.

For instance: I am functionally allergic to screen-tearing. I despise it. I notice it immediately, and if it's anything other than very minor and very infrequent, I won't put up with it. I don't care about anything else re that game - whatever it is, I'm not going to play it. Someone else won't notice and/or won't care. Is one of us right and the other one wrong...?

@dh2005: For me its the fact we live in an era where games get patched. Many people rely on scores to make a decision, especially for day one. Tons of folks were pissed that Elden Ring was getting 10's everywhere with how poor the performance was across the board. But once that's fixed it stays a 10. But then games that get lower scores citing performance have to live with that score regardless of how the game runs after that.

Days Gone 2 got canned as a result of those optics, even though it sold over 8 million copies, has a 9/10 rating on Steam, and plenty of folks still going to bat for it. Hell, even some people at Sony Bend were quite angry with how the game was treated. If I was a reviewer I would score a game based on its content and have a disclaimer right at the top if there are issues that are game breaking so that the game gets a fair score and players know that they may want to wait to pick it up.

@dh2005: You're likely right, Nintendo in a lot of ways are a tyrant in the industry, but they get away with it because everybody loves Mario, as this recent movie proves. They really are the Japanese version of Disney today. But its not just Nintendo that's an issue. Whenever reviewers tried to point out faults with a game, many of the rabid fanboys also went crazy about it. Like the Twilight Princesses review, Mario Sunshine review and many other examples. Both those games I actually liked, but I also noticed and accepted the issues that were pointed out and understood why the those games mentioned didn't get perfect scores.

me neither again

:(

@spacemanspiff00: Again, all true. Though I still feel there's significant variability.

Like, there's all the difference in the world between, "this and that's a bit annoying, but the game's still really good, and once they patch it, I can tell it'll be great", and on the other hand, "man, I just can't play this shit, at all...".

@dh2005: I'm more suggesting that, and maybe disclaimer is the wrong word, that performance be a quick separate analysis that his highlighted at the beginning and/or end of a review that dictates how the game runs close to or at launch. I'll agree that if you can't play it at all, and that's somehow a widespread problem, that it should effect the score to send a message to the publisher. Otherwise, if you can play and finish the game, in the case of Elden Ring for instance, then fine-- give it a 10. However, it would be nice to know without it being buried somewhere in the review that the performance is quite spotty and other larger bugs are present at the current time, as with Jedi Survivor.

Its not like outlets have time to go back and re-review and update scores for every game( as I ended up talking about with Dan Stapleton of IGN) so judging the game itself and the performance at launch somewhat separately would allow for a better lasting score most of the time. I liked when IGN used to do the tables that analyzed things like audio, visual, performance, etc. Again, if its totally borked at launch somehow then you need to send a message with the score. Like Cyberpunk maybe deserved and outlets were more than happy to bury info on other versions in favor of a PC only review.

@spacemanspiff00: Sure, I basically agree.

Gone are the days (and they are gone, never to return...) when a game shipped 100% complete, finished, done, and you could judge it as it was, is, and always would be. It's both a good and bad thing that that's no longer the case - more bad than good, because it encourages (even rewards) shitty workmanship and deceitful marketing, and places reviewers and players in the invidious position of having to speculate on how a game might improve over time.

Add to that the political and mass hysteria components of game reviews, and you've got a recipe for dog shit. To say nothing of the fact that sometimes one's opinion simply doesn't align with the alleged consensus.

Example: after years of owning them, I finally got around to playing the remakes of Resident Evil 2 and 3 last month - and I preferred Resident Evil 3. I enjoyed them both but found Resident Evil 2 overlong, ponderous and repetitive, whereas the sequel was much more boom-bang-wallop-done. Metacritic disagrees with me, and I expect the frothing fanboy horde would disagree also...

@av_gamer: Yeah, agreed also. See my comments immediately above re Resident Evil!