I guess it is BOTW season for me cuz I’ve been playing the fuck out of it again. Maybe in preparation for BOTW II: Hydrated Ganon Boogaloo.
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I may end up getting it for Switch and replaying it at some point, especially if there is some kind of bonus for transferring a save.
Is BotW a trauma metaphor?
I can dig it, it’s a post apocalypse story where the intent is not to return to a time that once was and it is not an apocalypse that rendered the world barren. You personally have been rendered “dead”, but the world moved on. People are scattered and weakened, but society still exists and people still retain civility, all that has changed is an overwhelming sense of weakness. People are desperately dreaming of a better world; either through the founding of a new town, the recovery of lost artifacts, attaining closure for lost children, down to just having wanderlust but being too weak to satisfy it. In solving their problems you heal not only the world but yourself. You are not conquering the land like an imperialist, but instead making a difference and changing the world as much as it changes you.
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I hate Lynels. I hate that I need so many of their fucking parts to upgrade my armor. I hate that the ones that give me the most of their parts are in climates where I can’t be in full armor without risking hypothermia. I hate their goddamn tactics of going from fire breath to the flame explosion to the jump pound back to fucking fire breath. I hate I now have to wait for the blood moon because I killed them all. I hate that I now have to go back to the castle to restock my weapons because fucking one bastard chewed through half my stash.
I beat Lynels with Durians.
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Silver Lynels are a piece of cake 
.
Just don’t try to upgrade everything.
But the things I want to upgrade all need Lynel or Hinox parts. Oh yeah, guess I gotta go HAM on the Hinox population, but at least I have a system for them.
Honestly the challenge of a hinox is cool especially since a lot of the time you are wandering around and just find one. Everyone’s first hinox is learning just how bad dudes they are. Afterward though they just become a resource sink rather than a skill test.
Farming aggressively, trying to upgrade everything, trying to find every Korok, etc… You are free to enjoy these things. There is a time and a place for that kind of thing.
But they’re really not in the spirit of how I would suggest enjoying Breath of the Wild.
The moment you’re “grinding out” a resource in that game, you’re killing the primary joy of it. It’s designed elegantly so that there are always further goals, which are intended to be “unattainable.” It makes the world feel rich and vast.
As soon as you turn it into a completion exercise, it becomes a different thing.
Again, to each his own. But I think you’re doing yourself a disservice approaching the game this way.
I disagree. The grind is in there for a reason. Did the designers expect people to collect all 900 korok seeds? Probably not, but they still included a reward for it, even if it is, literally, shit.
I think there needs to be a corollary to the Lord British Postulate: if a task can be accomplished in a game someone will accomplish it. Don’t put 900 collectibles in a game and then go “hue hue hue they’ll never finish it so the world feels grander and more epic” in ANY game after the Banjo-Kazooie era. In fact now you make me want to go out and kill every Hinox and Lynel before the next blood moon just for the hell of it.
The entire video isn’t relevant but posting it for context. Dan Olson makes a good point about how games overflowing with dailies and other micro-goals can feel stifling by way of their numerous demands. As a corollary to that games with relatively few, but herculean tasks can feel calming and meditative. Something like Animal Crossing can be a daily ritual and not grinding because completion is not the goal. However, without an actual end point, the goal has no meaning (653/800 korok seeds is a sign of progress, 653 korok seeds out of infinite randomly generated ones is nothing)
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Don’t tell people how to have fun.
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Except if someone is engaging in bad or harmful behaviors. There is this idea that has been going around for years that someone having fun can not be questioned, and their fun-having behaviors can not be criticized. I have always, and continue to, call bullshit on that. “Having fun” is not some magical excuse that justifies any activity.
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While I agree with the sentiment of not telling people how to have fun…
If one’s complaint about a game is that they are doing something not-fun because they’re choosing to engage with the game in an unintended way, that’s the player’s fault, not the game. The game isn’t actually for that player, or the player is choosing to engage with the mechanics of the game in a manner that is clearly not fun for them.
If you don’t like grind farming in BoTW, you don’t have to do it. If you insist on doing it, that’s on you.
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