By Justin Haywald on Aug 13, 2017 09:30 pm
The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild is a modern classic. The first open-world entry in the Zelda franchise presents Hyrule in a way that makes the entire world feel vibrant and alive. And it's also the first Zelda game to include DLC. The first DLC pack introduced the challenging Trials of the Sword as well as a few key items that helped ease the strain of tedious tasks like finding treasure chests and Korok seeds. And the next DLC pack, called The Champions Ballad, will focus on a "new dungeon and a new original story." But pack could introduce a few additional tweaks as well. Just as DLC Pack 1 introduced new mechanics like a warp point that you can place anywhere in the world and a Hero's Path option that lets you see almost every step you've taken, there are several quality of life improvements that could make Breath of the Wild's next DLC pack (or a future free update to the game) even better. Here are 12 suggestions for what I'd like to see in The Champion's Ballad. There are light spoilers for the main game here, so proceed with caution if you haven't already completed your own Hyrule adventure.
Quick-swap for chest items
When you open a chest, if your inventory is full, you should be able to swap out items on the fly. This suggestion is less something that should be in the DLC, and more a bigger fix that should be part of a free update at some point. Early in Breath of the Wild, you burn through items so quickly that the occasional need to go into your menu and move items around before you can retrieve a new piece of equipment isn't that frequent. But late in the game, when your inventory is always overflowing, almost every time you open a chest requires you to close a dialog box saying you can't carry any more weapons, toss out one of your current items, then open the chest again. It's an unnecessary extra step, but there's a potentially simple fix: change the dialog pop-up so that it gives you a choice of keeping the new item or letting it stay in the chest. If you choose to keep it, the game could bring up your item scroll wheel and let you immediately pick an item to swap out.
Weapon crafting
You carry a lot of extra loot in Breath of the Wild, and while you can use some of it to make potions or food, most of it eventually feels like filler. But what if you could use your extra items and consumables to craft weapons? Weapons are already a disposable item, so being able to craft them wouldn't feel out-of-place in the game, and there are times when you need a specific weapon for a quest, or a sword with a particular power would be especially helpful for an upcoming battle. Or maybe you're just tired of finding two-handed weapons and you'd rather have a full set of swords and shields. Chasing down those specific weapons, even using the game's built-in radar, can be an unnecessary chore. Sure, you can find a wide array of elemental weapons in the Coliseum ruins, but that's still relying a bit too much on random luck. And there's a precedent for re-acquiring some special Champions weapons by going back to the leader of each major village. However, setting up a crafting table in each town, or even just one in your own house in Hateno Village, would give you a little more control over what you decide to carry. And a crafting system wouldn't necessarily make the game too easy--after all, you're not getting weapons you want on demand in the heat of battle--and it could introduce a fun new crafting mechanic to the game.
More house customization
In addition to the crafting table, having more options to customize your Hateno house would be another nice feature to take advantage of the materials and money you amass late in the game. Once you've finished the full list of limited upgrades, your house goes almost unused for the rest of the game. But what if you could upgrade the bed, making it something comparable to resting at the Gerudo village's inn? Or if you could further increase your storage capacity? These small upgrades would make it feel like a useful addition to your quest, a real "home" you'd want to come back to, instead of just a pit stop on your journey. And beyond that, why not add cosmetic changes as well? Going full "Animal Crossing," with a rainbow of interior and exterior paint choices, more furniture, and a place to display other collectibles would make Link's Breath of the Wild house an even more appealing.
Farming
Like finding just the right weapon you need can be a pain, sometimes you also need a specific recipe ingredient, but it just doesn't grow in the abundance that you need. Kakariko village has swaths of unused fields that would be perfect for establishing the Link Ranch, a place to plant berries, trees, and other consumables for easy-harvesting. The farm doesn't need to be limited by normal crops either--maybe you could plant a few star fragments to grow star fragment bushes. Finding enough of those to upgrade all of your armor can be one of the grindiest tasks in Breath of the Wild. However, collecting the game's other hardest-to-find item set requires a different solution entirely...
Multi-hit dragons
This is another suggestion that should really just be part of a free update. There are two items that make upgrading your armor a joyless slog: finding Star Fragments (which could be solved by Star Fragment farms in the previous slide) and harvesting dragon parts. When you're trying to collect pieces of the four big dragons that float around Hyrule, you can only get one item from them per appearance. This artificial increase in rarity makes the parts feel special, but when you need a dozen different pieces to upgrade your armor, it means you spend a lot of time camped in one spot, shooting a dragon for a single piece (that you hope doesn't get lost by going off the edge of a cliff or landing somewhere inaccessible). Then you light a fire, warp ahead to the next day, and repeat. The dragons themselves appear so infrequently in the course of regular gameplay anyway that you should be able to knock off a part for every arrow you can land on their hulking bodies.
Climbing Gloves
You're late in the game. You have a full three rings of stamina, full hearts, every piece of armor, and you're scouring the mountains looking for every last Korok seed. Without warning, a flash rain comes in, and now you can't climb. Your options become, setting the controller down and waiting for the rain to pass, hoping that you've got enough Revali's Gale to get you to where you're going, or leaving and warping off someplace else. For an adventurer who's already made it through tens of hours, there should be some solution for getting up the sheer cliffs of a mountain without getting stopped completely by a sprinkling of rain. The next round of DLC could introduce gloves that let you grip rocks in the rain. Or the game could re-introduce the classic Ocarina, with one specific tune: The Sun Song--a little ditty to make the sun shine again.
A recipe book
One of the few things that truly feel "missing" from Breath of the Wild is a comprehensive in-game recipe book. You never really need to know anything beyond "make food with one hearty ingredient." That one "recipe" will provide you with consumable that will max out your hearts every time. But the completionist in me still wants to know every unique recipe in the game. How many have I found and created? What combinations are left to discover? A recipe book for both keeping stock of what I've made as well as making it easier to create those recipes again would be a godsend. Oh, while we're fixing the recipe tracking, why can I stack a seemingly infinite number of apples, fish, and mushrooms, but as soon as I cook them into a dish, they become individual items? Please patch in stacking for prepared foods!
Traditional Zelda dungeons
The Divine Beasts present an interesting set of puzzles and a fresh take on the classic Zelda dungeon structure. But bringing back the lairs filled with devious puzzles, mini-bosses, doors to unlock, and maps to find would provide the perfect mix of nostalgia and fun for The Champion's Ballad DLC. Changing the previous games' formula for Breath of the Wild made sense, and the ability to manipulate the layout of each dungeon from your map made exploration a sometimes complex riddle on par with the best Zelda dungeons. But there's a certain charm in some of the series' more traditional elements, like tracking down the master key in a massive, multi-story tower filled with monsters and dead ends.
More "surprise" story moments
The flashback memories in Breath of the Wild were a delight. They provided snippets of a story that required you to actively seek them out, and deciphering their order and meaning was just another part of the magic. But the moment-to-moment story lacks any immediate sense of danger. When the Rito people complain about the threat of the Divine Beast Vah Medoh, or when the Gerudo mention that they fear the imminent destruction of their desert town, but then everyone goes about their day as though nothing particularly worrisome is going on, it robs Link's journey of urgency. Admittedly, that's always been an issue with Zelda games (except for maybe Majora's Mask). You have a desperate populace begging for your help, a dark threat looms in the distance, and you'll get around to it immediately...right after you finish going fishing for a few days and collecting some well-hidden treasures. But the Hero's Ballad is Nintendo's chance to show that they can tie together the quests and gameplay more cohesively. The moments that stand out clearest for me in Breath of the Wild are the random characters that I came along seemingly in the middle of nowhere. When I stood on top of a bridge, and an NPC ran up to tell me not to throw my life away. While not tied to an overarching story, it showed an awareness of where I'm going and what I'm doing in the game. They were scripted moments, but it didn't feel like the NPC was just waiting for me to come along; it felt like I'd discovered this special moment. Those types of characters felt like they were truly part of the world, and I hope those surprises are part of how The Champion's Ballad story unfolds, rather than just the standard mission-based cutscenes.
A reason to be fully powered up
If you finished Breath of the Wild chances are you have multiple stamina bars, an abundance of hearts, and a powerful Master Sword. And even before the Trial of the Master Sword came along to raise the power of the game's primary weapon even further, the end already felt far too easy. Sure, Master Mode lets your reset everything and try the game on a punishing new difficulty, but what I'd like to see in the next DLC is a reason to play with the fully powered-up Link in my primary game. I want the odds stacked against me with Trials of the Sword-like challenges, but where I get to use every piece of fully upgraded armor and Divine Beast power in my arsenal. Part of that would come down to the types and numbers of enemies you find in dungeons, and the ways that dungeons are laid out. But it's something that could also by aided by my next suggestion: golden enemies.
Golden enemies
I actually thought this would drop in the last DLC pack, or that it would at least be a part of Master Mode, but Breath of the Wild is ready for a new enemy class: Golden. Or rainbow-colored. Or some kind of neon. The color doesn't matter as much--I just want to see a new class of monster that ratchets up the general difficulty for each enemy just a little higher. These new enemies should have even more loot, and maybe they'll introduce another set of even stronger weapons. But you get to a point in the game where the only thing to fear are Silver Lynels, and even they can be taken by a skillful fighter. The Master Mode is too separate; I'd rather have something crazy and new to face in the main game.
Playing as someone new
While Nintendo's devs seem to have been pretty clear that you won't be playing as Zelda in Breath of the Wild, I'd like to try out a new Hero's abilities. Link's a blank cipher who can take any personality, which makes him a fitting protagonist, but being able to take on a new set of magical attacks and power from Zelda or one of the other Champions could introduce a novel way to change up the gameplay and re-balance the game's difficulty. Given the title is The Champions Ballad, the four characters you save in the main game will feature prominently in some way in this DLC. And even if that's just within a dungeon or some other limited space, it wouldn't be far-fetched to get to play as them as well. The new heroes would provide an exciting change to Breath of the Wild's core gameplay, providing a strong incentive to jump back in, no matter how many tens (or hundreds) of hours you've already played. What would you like to see added to Breath of the Wild for the Champion's Ballad DLC? Did you we leave out anything important, or did any of our suggestions really resonate with you? Let us know in the comments below!
By GameSpot Staff on Aug 13, 2017 08:30 pm
2017 is far from over, and the big fall release period is still to come, and yet there have been an astounding number of games already released this year. You likely heard that Resident Evil 7 or Mass Effect: Andromeda came out, but numerous other games have launched in 2017 that you may have missed. Despite that, they are well worth checking out, and you might even be able to do so with the benefit of patches or lower price tags. But where to begin? We've rounded up 13 such games for Xbox One spanning a variety of genres for you to check out in the gallery above. We'll also have recommendations for other platforms in the coming days. - Best Nintendo Switch Games You Might've Missed In 2017 [coming Monday]
- Best PS4 Games You Might've Missed In 2017 [coming Tuesday]
- Best PC Games You Might've Missed In 2017 [coming Wednesday]
- Best Games You Might've Missed In 2017 [coming Thursday]
Crypt of the NecroDancer
Roguelikes (or at least roguelike elements) have been one of the most popular trends in gaming over the past handful of years, but few have taken as interesting of an approach to the genre as Crypt of the NecroDancer. Originally released on PC in 2015 before making its way to other platforms, including Xbox One earlier this year, NecroDancer tasks players with navigating a dungeon to the beat of the music. Rather than simply move in the direction you wish or attack the enemy that's in your path, you and your enemies' actions are tied directly to the (always excellent) soundtrack. It's essential that you always be doing something--not taking an action at the next beat resets your combo, meaning you'll earn less gold or deal less damage, depending on the items you've acquired. Particularly as the music becomes more fast-paced, this lends a real sense of tension and excitement to every moment: you need to constantly be considering your next action while accounting for how nearby enemies will react to your movements. It's an experience with few points of comparison, but it's nonetheless one that you'll certainly want to try.
The Disney Afternoon Collection
Licensed games may have a (largely deserved) reputation for being cheaply made and poor quality, but as Capcom proved during the NES era, a talented developer could turn even a TV or film franchise into a gaming classic. Such was the case with the studio's Disney titles. During the late '80s and early '90s, Capcom was the steward of the Disney license, and it produced a number of excellent games based on Disney's most beloved cartoons and movies. The Disney Afternoon Collection compiles six of these, each one based on a popular Disney animated series: DuckTales, DuckTales 2, TaleSpin, Darkwing Duck, Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, and Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers 2. Nearly every game in the collection is still enjoyable to this day, and they've been supplemented with a handful of new features like time trials, save states, and the ability to rewind. That last feature in particular is a welcome addition, as it makes even the more unforgiving titles in this compilation much more manageable. The best thing about the compilation, however, is that it gives players a chance to experience some of Capcom's rarer efforts like DuckTales 2. The Disney Afternoon Collection is a must-have for any retro gaming fan.
Enter the Gungeon
Being a roguelike-style shooter, Enter the Gungeon naturally draws comparisons to games like The Binding of Isaac and Nuclear Throne. And while that does offer a decent starting point for understanding what to expect, Enter the Gungeon manages to rise above being a pale imitator. It feels fantastic, with a dodge-roll ability that allows you to satisfyingly evade damage with a well-timed use. There are ridiculous weapons, such as those that fire bees or a gun that shoots guns which themselves fire bullets. The well-crafted procedurally generated environments help to keep each run feeling fresh, as do the wide variety of items and secrets to uncover along the way. And co-op support makes for an especially fun, chaotic experience (although it's unfortunate that the second player isn't able to play as the different characters that the main player has access to). The entire game is also overflowing with personality and color, making for an experience that is as fun to look at as is to play.
Forza Horizon 3: Hot Wheels DLC
Forza Horizon 3 was already arguably the best racing game of the generation--if not longer--and it's only gotten better since launch with the release of two expansion packs. The first, Blizzard Mountain, went the more obvious route of taking players to a region inundated with snow, which was great, but the Hot Wheels expansion is the stuff of childhood fantasies. Whereas the Forza series has traditionally focused on delivering realism, this DLC allows you to get behind the wheel of classic Hot Wheels cars and drive them around wild courses comprised of loops and huge jumps. Making this all the more delightful is the way these are made from the classic orange Hot Wheels tracks and weave through an otherwise standard island setting that would not have been out of place in Horizon 3. Thanks to the track layout and boost pads, there's a sense of speed you don't get in the standard game, and it's downright exhilarating when you leap across a chasm or go zooming past a giant animatronic dinosaur for the first time.
Little Nightmares
Little Nightmares is a haunting adventure that instantly pulls you into its world of existential conundrums. Having released this past April up against bigger games like Persona 5 and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, it's likely this eerie journey passed you by. You play as Six, a nine-year-old girl trapped in The Maw, an underwater resort filled with monstrous, disfigured inhabitants. The background details are never explicitly explained, but it's clear from the beginning that your goal is to escape. It's a simple adventure that displays an enthralling sense of mystery throughout, pushing you from one tense cat-and-mouse-style chase to the next, as you explore the mysterious exteriors of The Maw. Clocking in at around two hours, it's likely you'll finish Little Nightmares in one or two sittings, but its strange world and distorted inhabitants makes it well worth checking out.
The Sexy Brutale
The Sexy Brutale is a quirky little puzzle game co-developed by Tequila Works, the studio behind beautiful adventure game Rime. Its essentially Groundhog Day: The Game--you play through the same day over and over, but with each runthrough you learn more about the creepy mansion you find yourself in. After seeing one character shoot another, you might go and find the gun and prevent the bloody murder by replacing real bullets with blanks. A number of these murders are interconnected--solving one puzzle might prevent one murder, but that could change another branch of time elsewhere in the house. There's no way of preventing every murder in one go, but discovering and tinkering with the different timelines is where the fun lies. We've played it over and over again--groundhog day indeed.
Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment
Shovel Knight is 8-bit gaming not as it was--glitchy and fuzzy--but as we choose to remember it--pixelated, vibrant, and cleverly detailed. The sequel-by-expansion, Specter of Torment, is a similar retro action-platformer that is by all appearances on par with the original. The key difference is that the star, the lead character you control, is a villain from the first game: Specter Knight. His identity obviously plays into a narrative differently than Shovel Knight's did, but more importantly, Specter Knight moves and attacks in new ways, too. This is all to say that Specter of Torment is an excuse to revisit Shovel Knight's wonderfully nostalgic world and undergo a new range of challenges that call upon a unique set of skills. And the reason it's worth playing at all is because developer Yacht Club Games' work rises above the team's inspirations, and ultimately our rose-tinted memories as well. If you see any value at all in classic 2D platformers, Shovel Knight and Specter of Torment will more than likely make your day.
Snake Pass
At first glance, Snake Pass' colorful art style makes it seem reminiscent of classic Rare platformers like Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64. However, its mechanics differ wildly from those games; there's no jumping here. You control a snake named Noodle, maneuvering and curling around objects with his serpentine body, navigating intricate obstacles to reach collectibles, and solving a multitude of physics-based puzzles. The challenges you encounter are each meticulously crafted around Noodle's unconventional physicality, demanding you to know the ins and outs of his physics to fully master. It's quite unlike many games out there, which is more than enough reason for you to check it out, if only to discover how charming and different it is.
Thimbleweed Park
Thimbleweed Park is a point-and-click adventure by famed ex-LucasArts duo Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick. It was first revealed via Kickstarter back in 2014, but it finally released this year. The game deals with a murder in the small town of Thimbleweed Park where two FBI agents, Antonio Reyes and Angela Ray, are tasked with investigating the killing. The game rides a thin line between nostalgia and reinvention, balancing its comically written remembrances for the time-honored genre with a sliver of modern design choices. While it sometimes sticks too closely to the point-and-click genre's long-held tenets, Thimbleweed Park is great for experienced adventure game fans eager to experience its whimsical narrative, solve its multitude of puzzles, and uncover its secrets.
Tokyo 42
Micro Tokyo lies in the sky, atop the buildings and skyscrapers that make up its dystopian cyberpunk future. It's vibrant and lively on the surface but creepily sterile and violent as you fight back against unjust authority. Or to distill it further, you shoot, slice up, and blow up hundreds bad guys since they're after you for a murder you didn't commit. Tokyo 42 is an isometric action game that blends elements of top-down shooters with a little stealth in an open world. Its story takes you down the rabbit hole of joining a secret organization of assassins, but it doesn't take itself too seriously. Despite the brutal nature of firefights and the unforgiving (sometimes frustrating) bullet-hell-like enemy encounters, Tokyo 42 still manages to be...cute. It's probably the allure of neon signs and adorable cats.
What Remains of Edith Finch
What Remains of Edith Finch is a game in the same vein as Dear Esther and Gone Home; that is to say, it's a "walking simulator." Some might be turned off by the genre, but it tells a hauntingly beautiful and compelling tale that should not be missed. The premise is that the Finch family carries a supposed curse that leads every family member to die in unexpected and bizarre ways. It's very Final Destination in that aspect. You play as Edith Finch, as you explore the huge, mysterious family manor to unearth how members in your family tree have passed away. This opens the door to creative flashbacks, where you get to play the last strange moments leading to people's deaths. The story is powerful, gripping, and dark like an episode of Black Mirror. It's full of unexpected twists and turns and could only effectively be told through the video game medium. Considering you can beat it in under three hours, you should play it as soon as you can.
Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap
Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap is a game that sets out to bring the retro platforming adventuring series to the present day, while also celebrating its beginnings in the classic era. As a full remake of the original of Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap for the Sega Master System and TurboGrafix-16, it features a brand new artstyle that's lush and vivid, giving off a greater depth in its atmosphere--along with a fully orchestral soundtrack based on the original music. In keeping with its respect for the original, the remake allows you to shift between classic and modern styles of music and graphics on the fly. Feel like playing the original game in HD? You can do that, but if you're feeling crazy, you can mix things up and play with modern graphics along with retro sound and music. It even allows old passwords from the classic game to be used again, just like the old days. Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap is a wonderful send-up to the classic era, while showing that retro titles still hold up incredibly well to this day.
Yooka-Laylee
Developer Playtonic Games billed Yooka-Laylee as a "spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie" when it first pitched the game on Kickstarter, and that certainly wasn't an exaggeration. Like the classic N64 platformer, Yooka-Laylee stars an eponymous duo (in this case, a lizard and bat) and has players use their unique abilities to explore expansive, colorful worlds and pick up all manner of collectibles. In fact, Yooka-Laylee channels the spirit of Banjo-Kazooie so well that it genuinely feels like a long-lost N64 platformer, for better and sometimes worse; like many of Rare's titles, the game occasionally succumbs to some frustrating design decisions, and the number of collectibles to find could have been scaled back to make the overall experience tighter. That said, even during its moments of frustration, Yooka-Laylee remains one of the most charming releases of the year thanks to its tongue-in-cheek writing, beautiful art style, and whimsical soundtrack. The game more than succeeds in its mission of reviving the long-dormant genre, and while it may not top Banjo's first two adventures, it certainly sits alongside Rare's N64 output nicely. Anyone who grew up with '90s platformers and has a fondness for Rare games in particular will find a lot to love about Yooka-Laylee.
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