News:: 'Breath of the Wild' creators explain how they bucked tradition

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild isn't just the series' best game in years, it's also unlike any title in the series -- it's an open-world experience where you're free to find your own solutions to challenges. But just how did Nintendo manage to pull off such a radical change in direction? Don't worry -- it's happy to explain. The Game Developers Conference has posted a talk from Nintendo's Hidemaro Fujibayashi, Satoru Takizawa and Takuhiro Dota that describes how the Breath of the Wild team broke from the highly linear experiences of past Zelda games. It's a textbook example of how to make a good open-world game regardless of the genre.

Source: GDC (YouTube)

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News:: Forget hardcore mode, Pylon: Rogue is just plain hardcore

Reading the name Pylon: Rogue before heading into this preview gave me a few ideas. What if this was about a rogue traffic cone who, while kids are crossing the street, decides to move and cause a horrible accident? I may need psychological help, but Pylon: Rogue certainly doesn’t need much; the game is solid already.

The best way to describe Pylon is by calling it a Diablo clone. This is an action-RPG with a heavy emphasis on loot drops. The big twist on the formula is that Pylon is a roguelike; the developer, Quantumsquid Interactive, cited The Binding of Isaac as a huge influence on the systems for Pylon and it definitely shows.

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News:: The Great Retro Quiz! Zelda Results

Last weekend, in celebration of the newest Legend of Zelda game, I posted a quiz about the series' history, with questions spanning the entire 30 year history of the franchise. Today, the results. This quiz was intentionally more difficult than the last one I did, so let's see who got the best score. I'm sharpening up my red teacher's pen, and...

There's an awful lot of red ink getting all over everything. Probably shouldn't put pens in the pencil sharpener. Whoops. Oh well, let's get to it.

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News:: Review: DYING: Reborn VR

I have to admit that despite having a PS VR in my possession since late last year, I haven't played with it all that often. Partly this is due to real-life concerns butting in, and partly due to the deluge of excellent non-VR titles of the last several months. 

The result has been an unusually long "honeymoon" period, where relatively shallow experiences can still delight, while deeper, more intense attempts leave me heaving for lack of "VR legs."

Yet, even by the forgiving standards of a VR naïf like myself, DYING: Reborn VR seems like kind of a wash. 

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News:: Quake Champions ain't your granddad's Quake

I’m a big fan of old-school shooters. I cut my teeth on them in my youth and I still get a kick out of how ultra fast paced and skill based those older games were. I can return to classics like Unreal Tournament and Quake III Arena without batting an eye. The design of both of those games is practically ingrained in my brain; I don’t think I could forget their maps regardless of how far removed I become from them.

So with much anticipation, I was ecstatic to try out Quake Champions at PAX this morning. id Software did an excellent job on rebooting Doom last year, so the studio clearly still knew how to craft a compelling shooter. Sadly, while Quake Champions is definitely competent, it doesn’t really feel like the games of my youth.

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News:: You won't be hacking and slashing much in the first hour of Dragon Quest Heroes 2

I’ve actually never played a Dragon Quest game before. I know of the series and some of its creatures, but my largest piece of knowledge is about how an elderly Japanese actress wanted to play IX before she died. To say I walked into my demo session with Dragon Quest Heroes 2 totally blind would be an understatement.

I am a fan of Dynasty Warriors, though, so I sort of knew what to expect. Having just gone back to Hyrule Warriors before the launch of Breath of the Wild, I figured that DQH2 would feature a mash-up of series characters let loose into massive battles with hundreds of characters populating the screen. It looks like developer Omega Force is going for a different angle, though, as this game was not that.

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News:: Let this brief Steven Universe: Save the Light gameplay clip drive a van into your heart

I know it's not that long, I know it's a brief part, but this Steven Universe: Save the Light gameplay definitely gets where it needs to. Developed by Grumpyface Studios, the team who worked on the previous title, Attack the Light, Save the Light is an RPG with eight playable characters. I'm guessing the three Crystal Gems and Steven, Greg, Connie, and maybe Lapis Lazuli and Peridot? Its story is being supported by Steven Universe creator Rebecca Sugar, so I'm pretty pumped for it. 

Honestly just seeing it in motion really struck a chord with me. Seeing the faux-2D characters move around a map gave me a Paper Mario vibe, and the cartoon has a color palette full of bright hues and soft colors that should look great on a full console release. 

[via IGN]

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News:: Review: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Wii U)

Games don’t tend to age as well as entertainment from other media. A movie made 60 years ago, even if it’s not a particularly well-made movie, can be just as enjoyable today as it was when it first hit theaters. There are many video games from my childhood in the '80s and early '90s that I absolutely loved, but can’t push myself to play today because issues I could ignore or missed as an adolescent today stand out like a sore thumb.

The Legend of Zelda is not one of those games. When it was released it changed gaming, and when I finally got to play it at five years old, it changed me and started a lifelong love affair with interactive entertainment. So well crafted, so forward thinking, the NES masterpiece is just as playable today, 30 years later, as it was when it was first released. Something tells me 30 years from now, when I’m 61, I’ll be saying the same thing about The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

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News:: PREPARE TO FRIENDSHIP: Dtoid's Master Gaming Contact List

_{[I have recently learned some of you think I don't update this list. You are silly. Give me your Switch codes, or I will pry them from your grasp. Also, we're back to weekly for now! The List will be updated into perpetuity -Panda]}

Good morning/afteroon/tomorrow, my friends/robots/Gardevoir

It has been made aware to me that, just perhaps, you all enjoy video games. It might even be said that you... like to game with others? Now now, don't be that way, I don't mean to lump you into some sort of box. You're all just such lovely folks, it pains me to watch you, struggling in vain to connect with each other, striving to engage in...

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News:: I would love to see Platinum Games take on Base Wars

With an outstanding score on Metacritic and a 9/10 from our own Chris Carter, NieR: Automata has proven once again that Platinum Games is one of the best developers in the game today. So much so that seemingly every time people talk about Platinum Games, they talk about what properties they want it to tackle next. I’m sure we all have a game we’d love to see it make, like a good TMNT title, but for me, I can’t help but wonder what a Platinum Games developed Base Wars game would be like.

If you don’t know what Cyber Stadium Series: Base Wars is, I feel sorry for you. Released in the later years of the NES, it’s a baseball game starring robots that fight each other. Close call at home plate? Fight it out! Caught trying to steal second? Fight it out! I don’t play baseball games because baseball is just so awful, but you can bet your ass I would if instead of being called out at first, I had a chance to fight a robot to the death to decide the call.

With its limited NES graphics capabilities, the action of Base Wars was rudimentary. There were only four robot models, and while they could be upgraded, every fight pretty much felt the same. It was also wickedly unbalanced if you were armed with a gun. But put that concept in the hands of Platinum Games, and you have a chance to make something magnificent. Imagine stealing home and initiating a massive, visually spectacular fight with the catcher, where the two of you end up in dugouts or in the stands. Imagine getting beaned by a pitch and being able to return. Imagine a bench-clearing brawl that pits you against nine, supped up robots at once. The more I think about the possibilities, the more I laugh at how perfect the idea seems.

As one of the 18 people who bought Infinite Space, a part of me wants Platinum Games to branch out from the action genre it’s been pigeonholed in. But the part of me that thinks Bayonetta 2 is one of the greatest games ever made knows that keeping the developer doing what it does best is the way forward. A Platinum Games developed Base Wars is perfect, and something tells me the rest of the Destructoid staff isn’t imaginative enough to come up with an idea as good as that.

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News:: Walk softly and carry a big sword in Final Fantasy XV: Episode Gladiolus

Over the PAX East 2017 weekend, I sat down to play through a slice of Final Fantasy XV’s upcoming Episode Gladiolus DLC. Though I can’t talk about story-specific details – both at the request of Square Enix and because I already forgot what the hell happened in that game – I’m free to talk about how Dave Navarro Gladio handles himself in combat.

After thirty minutes of beating up monsters as Gladio, I don’t ever want to control Noctis again. Though I loved Final Fantasy XV, I always felt like the action-based combat system could stand to do a bit less. Noctis, with all of his Warp Strikes and weapon swapping, often made even the most basic encounters seem like over-the-top engagements. As Gladiolus, however, I found myself smacking enemies and blocking attacks with a big, dumb grin on my face.

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