Games Inbox: Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom and breakable weapons

The Thursday letters page wants to see a lot more demos for all video games, as one reader wonders what happened to Capcom’s Pragmata.

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E-mail your comments to: [email protected]

Fire and forget
I said to my wife many years ago, while playing Oblivion, the final upgrade for bows should be homing arrows, or at least a satisfying slo-mo aftertouch, Sensible Soccer style. I see this is a fun new addition to the new Zelda. I wonder if it has it featured in any other games beforehand?

Must say I’m impressed with the latest demo. The fuse skill is genius and implemented with typical Nintendo aplomb.

As an aside, I’m working through the Wii back catalogue when snatches of gaming time permit. I’d forgotten how much fun Need For Speed Nitro and Cruis’n were (tilt control skills honed with Excite Truck helps). The latter being an arcade-perfect forerunner of the splendid Cruis’n Blast on Switch. Long live the non-realistic arcade racer.
will sargent

GC: We know they’re a thing in Minecraft and Terraria, but we’re struggling to think of a more structured game that has them.

Try before you buy
I feel like the death of E3 and its ilk is inevitable, as companies shift from live shows to pre-recorded, Nintendo Direct style presentations.

Can we not have a modern take on the demo booth as well, though?

They should release demos – the ones they would have had E3/Gamescom/whatever – for a limited time during or after the presentations.

I know in the past companies have said demos negatively impact sales, but that was a while ago. The fact that Capcom credited Resident Evil 4’s Chainsaw Demo for its success hopefully means other publishers will follow suit.
ANON

GC: In general, publishers want you to know as little as possible about a game before you buy it, that’s one of the reasons why E3 has been left to die. As you say, it’s a relief to see Capcom enjoy success with their openness over Resident Evil 4. We can only hope it encourages others.

Slow death
It is sad but the writing is on the wall for E3 now. It was always such a fun time of year to look forward to in the past. Now we have to hope for random showcases and sometimes we don’t even get them during a calendar year.

In reality, E3 received a fatal blow in 2019, when Sony decided not to attend, and it’s been bleeding out ever since; it seems now the rest of the companies have decided to deal the death blow, to put it out of its misery.
Niall Maguire

Excuses at the ready
That’s an interesting read about The Last of Us Part 1 being a buggy mess on PC.

Especially after Sony threw a grenade at the Activision Blizzard acquisition, suggesting Microsoft might purposefully release games on the PlayStation that won’t be ‘the finished article’, shall we say.

Especially as you guys suggested that Sony probably knew about the problems yet still released it to coincide with the TV show.

Which just adds more fuel to the fire when Microsoft delay the release of Call Of Duty on the PlayStation and the Xbox version is ready to rock and roll four months prior.

The answer will be ‘Of course we wanted it to be a universal release but unfortunately there are still a few kinks on the PlayStation version that need to be ironed out.

We are trying to get out of the habit of releasing games when they’re not ready and hope PlayStation owners understand that we just want them to have the best possible experience they possibly can on their hardware of choice.’

I suspect Microsoft will do more twists and turns through this whole saga. That they would make Maradona blush.
freeway 77

Don’t punch the boulder
If I was Capcom I would not want to remake Resident Evil 5. The game is not that great and the depiction of Africa needs a major overhaul and even then it’s going to cause so much argument I can’t see it ever been a net loss for them. It’s not a terrible game, so I guess it could be improved into a good one, but it just seems pointless considering no one wants Resident Evil 6 either. Unless they’re going to completely remake that one. But what would they keep to even consider it being the same thing?

Make Resident Evil 1 for the next next generation, sure, I can see the sense in that. But if you’re not going to do Code: Veronica, I would just call it a day and concentrate on new stuff.
Focus

Break out the weapons
It appears that the breakable weapons are back in Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom, as demonstrated in the 10 minutes of gameplay video. I remember people complaining that it was a bit like Marmite in Breath Of The wild, you either loved it or hated it. I always enjoyed that feature and any weapons I didn’t want to use I’d still carry along and throw them at enemies, just for giggles.

If you used the right weapon for the right job, for instance, a stone hammer for smashing rocks, an axe for chopping a tree, and not attempting some of other task with it, they became a lot more durable and more durable too as you ranked up in the game. You always had certain spawn areas for certain weapons and could always teleport there pretty quickly to restock on what you liked using. I’m glad they left the breakable weapons in the game, it also gave that element of survival that would be dearly missed.

The thing that entered my head when I watched the trailer was this looks like Breath Of The Wild 2.0. it’s the same land with the floating sky bits added. I remember reading about this will be Nintendo’s biggest ever file size of a game, so I thought it’s Breath Of The Wild plus all the new sky areas added together, which will be some real adventuring on hand.

But clearly the mechanics have changed, so that will offer up totally different gameplay than before. Also, to explore Hyrule again and see what some of the likeable characters are up to will be good to see.

I’m sure there’s a billion more surprises instore for us all as release date looms. I’ve already pre-ordered my copy.
Nick The Greek

Inbox also-rans
I don’t think Zelda has ever really done much with underwater exploration. I would totally be up for it having a Tomb Raider style approach where it’s a major part of the game and you have to swim anywhere.
LEM

If you liked the Leon meets Joe Biden video there’s a follow-up. The language is still pretty spicy but I found it hilarious.
Glovis

This week’s Hot Topic
The subject for this weekend’s Inbox was suggested by reader Tesla, who asks what video game franchise have you played the most entries in?

Many video game franchises have been going for 30 or 40 years at this point, with dozens of sequels and spin-offs, but which one have you played the most entries from? Is it because you’re a fan of the series and you purposefully sought them all out or was it more of an accident?

What put you off the entries you haven’t played and how much of a completionist do you tend to be about series you like? Do you like to keep the games and do you own any merchandise for them?

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The small print
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