Finished my first (pacifist) Deltarune Chapter 5 playthrough. Really liked it overall. LOVED the new action platforming sections. Kinda hated the multiple choice battle choice sequences. In between that, what a confident step to just throw a curveball nobody quite expected.
Never posted this since I hardly post but I spent a few months last year de-rusting my A Link to the Past any % speedrun and got a time I was happy with (1h34m13s). It was 316th place when accepted but I've already been bopped down to 322.
https://t.co/rSQLzLxwY4
After finishing Silksong (amazing) I have given Earthbound another try. I've gotten pretty far and have tolerated its RPGness pretty well but holy SHIT when RPGs rear their ugly heads, they are fucking MISERABLE. Turn based combat just isn't for me.
Those are just some idle thoughts that have been bouncing around in my head for the last several months. Older Zelda games had a good balance of environmental storytelling and narrative beats that told simple but compelling stories. Balance has been way off since Skyward Sword.
Something I've realized after playing some really great games over the past 2-3 years - among my favorites I've ever played - is that a good story makes a big difference to me, but it's best told in small bits where you learn along with the player character via emergent gameplay.
BOTW had some really good environmental storytelling, but the punch line never really came, even when an entire second game came with a promise to expand upon it. Unfortunately TOTK retroactively cheapened a lot of the intrigue of BOTW's limited story.