When was the last time Nintendo pushed the industry forward?

Don't get me wrong, I find @jcrame10's comment about BotW stupid as hell, but the shrines do all look the same. They just have different puzzles. And most of them have like 1 room. Wouldn't really call the shrines "unique dungeons", that's just silly. Not even Nintendo calls them dungeons.

@pelvist: There are a couple of repeated combat trials, so it's probably closer to 100 unique shrines.

But once you factor in the divine beasts, the overworld challenges (the mazes, etc.), and the DLC...the game is loaded with tons of interesting things to do.

it's not all about graphics

Why push the industry forward when you can sell last gen tech, cartoon looking characters from the 80's, and cardboard for a premium?

@Planeforger: eh, I think the game is great, but I would say the shrines are almost like a few dungeons split into a hundred isolated puzzles.

Some are pretty big and challenging, though. Those are definitely worthy of note. I hate the combat trial ones - give me puzzle shrines any day over those.

I don't even know what they are called, but I also like those giant deathtrap mazes

@Jag85: Pokemon Go was mostly developed by an American company Niantic. I'm unsure why Nintendo is credited solely for popularizing "augmented reality"; Niantic should be the one being praised more for that.

Back on subject, I think Nintendo is still influential. Pushing the industry forward? Super Mario 64 influenced 3D platformer gaming, but the 360-degree platforming in either cel-shaded graphics or 3D has become rare nowadays. Even the platformer genre itself has either declined, waned in popularity, or shifted into indie market. Mario is one of rare and exceptional AAA platformer franchises.

Fire Emblem is still one of rare, exceptional franchises in the tactical RPG genre, which has struggled to gain popularity.

Don't get me started on hardware and graphics hindrances of N64 and later home console systems. Sure, Wii brought forth motion control, which inspired more VR creations. It also revolutionized casual gaming. However, motion control is now very rare especially due to its limitations, and many gaming developers haven't utilized motion control very much since the Wii days.

The Switch, on the other hand, mixes handheld and home console gaming experiences and is probably intended to compete Apple iPads, especially by providing physical media that iPads don't. Unfortunately, I'm unsure how many mobile gaming developers would want to develop their games for the Switch. Most mobile gaming apps are very short and very Internet-based. The Switch looks as if Nintendo wants the AAA gaming market (or the Japanese gaming industry) to push forward.

@Litchie: 124 unique dungeons BAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAH

Yeah like I said, it's silly to call them "dungeons". Even sillier to call them "unique dungeons" when they all look largely the same. BotW has like.. 4 dungeons? The beasts. And even those aren't really dungeons in my opinion.. I guess you can call Hyrule Castle a dungeon as well. Kind of.

@Litchie: dunno, all I call is breath of the wild lazy design compared to games like ocarina of time, LttP, majora, or WW.

@Litchie: pulled from a reddit post, what are your thoughts?

The game is so shallow. It tried to be so many things at once, that it stretched itself too thin and every part of the experience feels like it's barely enough to justify that part of the game.

NPCs: Bad dialogue, bad voiceovers, side quests are very uninspiring and there are very few real side quest lines besides one-off missions and Tarrey town. I haven't actually 100%ed the game, but this was my experience on my playthrough.

Shrines: Some great concepts (some not), but all with the same textures, same reward, same statue at the end. Tests of strength all just you versus a guardian.

Weapon system: Lots of weapons but not lots of attack sets, and not much real world difference between them in how you use the weapons. No weapon upgrade system or meaningful augmentation due to the durability system.

Difficulty: The game tried to keep a balance where you would have a fighting chance in each area no matter what order you went to them in, meaning that as you progressed, the areas would get easier and easier no matter what order you took, as you got better weapons, armor, food and understanding of the mechanics. Too open world for its own good.

Food system: Nice idea, but ultimately quite shallow because you simply don't need any of the boosting foods. Ends up being a game of collecting durian and radishes because they're all you'll need for the whole game.

Power-ups: things like sneaking, extra stamina, cold resistance and heat resistance are barely needed at all (the latter two since you get equipment for those areas almost immediately, and regular food can get you through most of these areas without them). This is partly the fault of the game for being too easy, so sneaking and such are never necessary or even worth the effort when your goal is to complete the game (see difficulty).

Enemy monsters: Since the game is so open, you can, and when trying to be efficient -should-, avoid basically all combat. Since your weapons will break during combat, and getting hit will require you to eat food, getting into combat makes no sense once you've collected a few weapons together from shrines and those lying around in towns and occasional chests.

Enemy AI: Quite 'dumb', again due to the scale of the open world. Enemies were slower than you and couldn't figure out how to hit or stop you when you ran away (another reason why fighting is totally unnecessary). If you walked out of range, they'd immediately run back to camp and start jumping around as if you'd never existed. They'd run straight into bombs (slowly trying to kick an instantly triggered bomb doesn't count as good AI). No part of their behaviour made me feel intimidated by them. Nintendo tried to make up for this by giving them incredible damage output, making the bosses look puny in comparison. This only added to the incentive to walk away from fights.

The environment: Due to its scale, it's very barren. Lots of grass and mountains. No caves or indoor areas besides a very select few story missions. There was nowhere you could wander off to and discover something intriguing and exciting. It was all just more of the same - grass, mountains, a Korok and some random enemy placements.

Bosses: All same colour palette and design style (it may be a style choice, it wasn't a good one). Very few moves, long breaks between attacks and very telegraphed moves made them really boring to fight. Their damage output was far too low. They disappeared when you walked out of the room, then respawned when you walked back in. Why couldn't they follow you out, or the game prevent you from leaving for the fight?

Divine Beasts: Seem really awesome and creative when you go into the first one. Then you find out they're all the same principles (shoot 4 targets to incapacitate them, control some feature of theirs on the map to affect the world, solve puzzles and activate 3-4 terminals, then fight the boss in the middle of the arena). Also they all used the exact same colour palette and sprites that we were already sick of from the shrines.

Hyrule Castle: Finally an area with actual good design and interesting layout - rendered useless due to enemies not being worth fighting, and Link having more than enough weapons and shields from general adventuring to take down Ganon without the goodies hidden in the castle.

Calamity Ganon: Far too easy, no story or climax leading up to the final battle. We're not trying to stop him last second from doing something evil, he's just chilling there doing his thing as he has for the last 100 years and we wander into the room. The final phase is pretty embarrassing as he barely tries to hit you, and Zelda 'can't hold him any longer' for as long as you feel like taking.

BotW has so much more shit in it that's so far away from lazy, that calling BotW a lazy game is freaking nuts. But I can see why you'd think the shrines feel lazy, I do too to an extent.

A Zelda with BotW's scope and dungeons like the ones in OoT, Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, etc. would make the best damn game in the universe.. It's what I hope for with the next Zelda.

It was Nintendo that popularized AR. In 2014, they created an April Fools' prank with Google Maps, depicting a fake Pokemon AR game, which garnered significant mainstream attention. Nintendo wanted to turn that fake Pokemon AR game into reality, and was looking for a developer that had experience with AR. They discovered a little-known developer called Niantic, who had previously released a niche AR game called Ingress, which they enjoyed. So Nintendo got in touch with Niantic, and gave them the Pokemon Go project. And that turned out to be the biggest ever AR hit. And it is also Niantic's only blockbuster, as they have not been able to recreate the success of Pokemon Go with their later AR games, not even with the Harry Potter AR game. Pokemon Go became a blockbuster almost entirely because of Pokemon's brand power, due to the fact that Pokemon is the world's biggest entertainment media franchise. And it's Pokemon that put AR on the map.

Platformers are still as popular as they ever were. All that's happened is that they've shifted away from the AAA market and drifted towards the indie and mobile markets.

Fire Emblem has been a major hit franchise for Nintendo in recent years. The last two Fire Emblem games sold nearly 2 million each. And more recently, Fire Emblem Heroes has turned out to be Nintendo's biggest mobile hit besides Pokemon Go.

As for motion controls, we haven't seen its full potential yet. For VR to take off, it needs motion controls, since that's the only control method that can provide the immersion that VR is aiming for. The future success of motion controls very much depends on the success of VR. If VR takes off, then so will motion controls as the standard VR control method. If VR fails, then so will motion controls fail along with it.

@Litchie: I hope they abandon the generic open world formula (I’m not really a huge fan of most open world games in general) and go back to the more linear dungeon style with side quests

Nail + head

That is an amazing summary.

I enjoyed the game, but didn't think it was anywhere near as "epic" feeling as ocarina of time even though it was larger, didn't have any of the tention or darkness to it that Majoras Mask had....

It just felt like a Ubisoft meets Zelda experience, only incredibly barebones....

Combat was a chore, it served no real purpose in the open world.

In the end, I had no interest in making Link stronger, with max hearts because easy to come by food would max out your hearts with no effort. Seeds were pointless. The ancient gear + food made the gaurdian bosses killable in 5-10 seconds.

Yea, I liked the physics, and the interactivity, but it wasn't enough to compete imo. It wasn't a great zelda, and it wasn't a great open world game like Elder Scrolls / Kingdom Come / Fallout in the sense that I just had a TON to do and the world actually had pleanty of interaction and a variety of gameplay elements.

People shit on Elder Scrolls / Fallout for being "repetitive" ... Zelda felt FAR worse... at least in Bethesda games there was pleanty of variety in playstyles and things to achieve/do

reviewers and gamers hyping it on release saying its "like open world dark souls, difficult and you need to be careful with resources" - yea because you had enemies that 1-2 shot you for no reason other than being another colour .... and swords were like glass where 10-20 strikes and it breaks... and somehow if you throw a weapon it breaks in 2-3 throws... pathetic way to make artificial difficulty.

If Zelda is still being given a pass "because its a Puzzle Action Adventure Series, not a RPG" ... then it shoudl focus on making unique dungoens/areas with great puzzles... and tone back the open world repetitive tripe imo

Nintendo logic

Nintendo employee - "Breath Of The Wild isn't a very big game, how can we make it seem larger then it is?"

2nd Nintendo employee - "Lets put over 100 shrines in it to 'fill' out the game and make it seem larger then it is"

Same logic...

Nintendo employee - "Mario Odyssey isn't a very big game, how can we make it seem larger then it is?"

2nd Nintendo employee - "Lets put over 800 moons in it to 'fill' out the game and make it seem larger then it is and we'll even give players a moon for breaking a rock!"

Nintendo are the masters at what they do......

Imagine if Gorilla Games put over 100 cauldrons in Horizon.....

@kali-b1rd: it didn’t feel unique but like a generic open world Ubisoft game

You know it's true. You can't even deny BOTW's amazing physics engine. Hell, that's what truly elevated the game to legend status. You can solve any problem any way you want. It's completly open ended. Something very few games can offer these days.

But you keep donating to star citizen and dreaming of amazing AI that will never come. It's cute.

My thoughts? I've seen those complaints before. Most of those things, if you complain about those, you should probably hate all Zelda games ever made..

"The game is so shallow."
I don't agree. Skyward Sword? Yeah, that's a shallow Zelda game. Only thing I found a bit shallow with BotW is that the NPCs had a bit more charisma in other Zelda games. But again. Skyward Sword truly sucked in that department.

"Weapon system"
I don't agree. It's good. Again, if you've ever played and liked a Zelda before, why complain about this now that it's better and more varied than it has ever been in the series?

"Difficulty"
I had zero problems with this. The game nudged me in the direction that fit for the moment, and when I explored on my own I came across places that were too hard for me with my current gathered shit. It's just as I wanted it to be and just as it should be. When I was done with the game, Master Mode was an awesome addition and made me play the whole game again.

"Food system"
I agree that you can make way more types of food than you really need. Not sure why that's a big minus with the game though. More like fun and optional variety.

"Enemy monsters"
Avoid all combat? Why? Taking out a camp of monsters is both fun and gives you awards in the form of rupees or weapons/arrows. Don't need anything? Yeah, then don't attack. Weird complaint..

"Enemy AI is dumb"
Well, Bokoblins shouldn't be smart, LOL. But I don't really agree. They could kick away bombs and stuff like that. Not sure about you, but I don't think it would be better if they never stopped chasing you if you run away. That would be more annoying than cool. And Lynels are smart fuckers. Actually, BotW's AI is really good come to think of it.

"Environment is barren"
Never understood this complaint. BotW's world is the most un-barren open world I've ever seen. You don't wander around for long until coming across something interesting. If you think putting 5 million samey tasks on the map like Assassin's Creed makes the map less barren, fine, but that's shitty game design in my opinion.

"Bosses"
I agree that bosses were dissapointing. The ones they have are cool, but too easy. And they're repeated, which sucks. They could've done better.

"Divine Beasts"
Didn't have a problem with how you stopped them. Stopping them was pretty cool and fun. Had more problem with their actual dungeons that don't hold a candle against "real" Zelda dungeons.

"Hyrule Castle"
I don't know, I enjoyed it. I remember that I wanted to see more places like that in the game. It wasn't "rendered useless" for me, as I had a few sidequests to find and complete while being there, so I had fun exploring the entirety of it.

"Calamity Ganon too easy and stuff"
Agreed. I wanted a bigger and cooler fight. But this should be included in the complaint about bosses. I can just compare this to the Ganon fight in Wind Waker, which was fucking awesome. It's never fun when a developer dials back on what it made better before.

True. Pushing the industry forward can/does also involve game design, mechanics, sound, integration, and art.

Horizon is barely any better. not the best example.

I can see how someone who really likes TES to prefer that method of making a game. I personally think TES games are terrible, was expecting BotW to be terrible, and ended up loving BotW.

Pretty weak argument. Those two games are big even if you don't 100% them.

Earlier I mostly focused on hardware and I still feel the NES/SNES/N64 is the last time Nintendo pushed the industry forward. Someone made a great counter point that the PS1 did more which I can’t disagree with.

Gameplay wise? The N64. 3D was so new at the time and a lot of the N64 games controlled really well(at the time). The N64?games tend to have aged better than PS1 games but overall, the PS1 is the superior system because of the game library.

BOTW didn’t push the industry forward. No one is going to copy the massive flaws it has like weapon breaking. That along with other Things are poor design choices.

Horizon is much better and has no where near as much 'filler' content that makes the game seem much bigger then it is.

You haven't played Kingdom Come Deliverance, have you? NPC's react very differently to you, depending on your appearance , which is altered by blood, scratches, dirt and tiredness, all of which are accumulated over time. Meaning you have to sleep, eat, bathe and have your clothing and armour cleaned regularly if you want NPC's to react positively (sleeping and eating more directly affects your health and stamina). Sure you don't need to play a meta 'wash your arm pits' game but your appearance definitely affects interactions with others in the game world. RDR 2 is not the first game to do this.

When they released Donkey Kong in 1981 and popularised the platform genre then in 1982 when they released Donkey Kong Jnr and evolved the genre.

Since then they played it safe and concentrated on family market and casual gamers with crowd pulling gimmicky hardware.

Games are quite vanilla. You could say they effected the industry by introducing the Nintendo seal of quality to regain faith in a despondent us market in the early 80’s, albeit stifling all other competition in the process. But it’s academic if this was the true saviour of gaming as is so often stated or if technology had simply matured.

History has judged Nintendo to be the face of gaming and its saviour but I couldn’t say how much those historians / youtubers were paid.

Leave luck to the gods so you can concentrate on market shares and monopolies.

This video I'm posting now is from a game that released 11 years ago. No game on consoles right now has been able to top these physics and it's as a result of the garbage CPUs in today's consoles...

This is what CIG is doing now with their new engine...

This is what is possible when you aren't constrained by the limits of shitty calculator CPUs found in today's consoles. This is happening right now in the Star Citizen Alpha and it looks even more impressive in the newer builds. You wouldn't know good physics if it walked up to you and slapped you in the face you pleb.

As much frustration I have with Nintendo's backwardness in so many aspects, BotW was a game that was a step forward in the open world genre that eschewed many of its tired tropes. Introducing the elements (ice, fire, wind), having the world react dynamically to their interplay, and giving the player the tools to manipulate them lent for some incredibly emergent and hilarious gameplay possibilities. It took the shackles off the player in the open world construct (this also due to being able to climb wherever you wanted) and is a full on playground to experiment in.

@kenshiro3948: lol

Old pc trash.

What you gonna show me next? The original fallout?

Hahahaha! Epic Nintendo fanboy fail! Nothing on your console matches that 11 year old game proving my point that better CPUs equal better physics, and that CPUs on consoles are garbage and can't even match 11 year old PC CPUs.

Also since when is Star Citizen "old trash" when it isn't even out yet lol? The footage I showed is from it's Alpha that's available to the public now. You just admitted your total defeat with this shitty comeback.

Shareplay is the most innovative thing i've seen in a long while

@jcrame10: Oh well fair point actually, I forgot about Shareplay.

@kenshiro3948: star citizen

Man i feel bad that you’re hoping on that vaporware to save pc gaming.

XD PC gaming doesn't need saving you dumbass, it's bigger than console gaming.

Don't tell me you're one of those idiots that still thinks PC gaming is dying, HAHAHA! I thought we left you people in the early 2000s lol. PC gaming is bigger than ever stop embarrassing yourself. By the way, stop trying to turn our argument into a console vs PC thing because you're losing. I enjoy both PC and console gaming and like I told you earlier I still game on my 8-bit consoles so it's not a power thing. I'm just arguing with you because you're trying to insinuate that better hardware can't improve games when it's a fact that better hardware can improve a game if the gameplay and core mechanics are already solid. You're arguing from the point of a crazed Nintendo zealot trying to damage control for their weak hardware in the past decade. I however, still remember when Nintendo made great hardware as well as great games. The two don't have to be mutually exclusive, you can have both good hardware and good games.

Super Mario 64 and the Analog stick is the last time they actually pushed the industry forward in a lasting way.

There is nothing inherently special about that game outside being another quality Nintendo platformer. There is absolutely nothing revolutionary about it compared to Super Mario 64 for example.

@emgesp: you haven't been around here for ages.

@Jag85: I'll give you the benefit of the doubt regarding Splatoon's impact on multiplayer online shooters (Personally, I barely heard any news of it). However, I don't think you can amount those numbers to just "new kid on the block". The difference between PUBG's 400 million total players/50 million on PC alone and Splatoon's combined 12 million is enormous. It simply isn't in the same league in terms of popularity and none of that has to do with Splatoon being older because older CoD sales still eclipse Splatoon's.

The reason why I underline the Arkham series is because it's associated with quality. Say what you will about Spiderman 2, but the beating Activision gave to the series afterwards killed all momentum it gained. The hope of a good Spiderman was effectively dead. Arkham is the only time we've actually had consistently good releases for a superhero game. Spiderman PS4 also began development right around Arkham Knight's release, Spiderman 2 was a way's off Arkham Asylum.

I didn't mean to say that VR with KB/M is the way to go. I mean that for VR to be fully mainstream with all/most genres of gaming, you'd need a method of control as precise as KB/M. I still think the principal immersion factor is the VR headset itself. No matter how immersion breaking the controls may be, the amount of immersion you get from VR is leagues beyond anything you'll have on a monitor.

Google Glass seems to have died down. It was all over the media and I remember them running some public trials with it. It seemed like a very cool idea at the time, perhaps I'm just not following its recent developments. AR is, in my opinion, inferior to VR in terms of gaming. Yes you have some unique advantages to AR but it isn't plunging you into the experience like VR is. I definitely look forward to the development of both technologies though!

Nope, I considered getting it but the mixed reception at launch put me off. I hope the studio that made it fared well though, they took quite a risk developing something so ambitious. Those were just some examples I stated regarding NPC interaction, my point is that RDR 2 has a ridiculous amount of detail while being so polished. I didn't say it was the first to do any such specific features, but I would argue that it is the first to combine all of its subtleties in such a large scale package. Part of this is due to its 8 year development cycle across all of Rockstar's studios, something that I am almost certain War Horse wouldn't be able to accomplish in their first game as a startup. This isn't a knock on the game, but to expect a kickstarter project like Kingdom Come to take on a joint Rockstar effort isn't reasonable IMO.

Weapon breaking before Breath of the Wild: Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, and New Vegas, the former and latter are to this day worshipped by RPG purists as the only good games Bethesda ever developed (Morrowind) or Published (New Vegas).

As annoyed as I am that Nintendo hasn't put many AAA titles out for this generation (outside of ports and indies) besides Mario Odyssey and BotW (and Smash soon) and for as much as I'm enjoying Spiderman, Red Dead 2, and Forza Horizon 4 more than MK8 and Bayonetta 1 and 2 on my Switch, I do think that the Switch has pushed the industry forward. I don't know my history to a T, but I believe that if the Nintendo Switch isn't the first hybrid console ever, well its definitely the most popular ever. I love my Switch. It needs more games, but the premise is something I could only dream about as a kid. Being able to play your home console game and then...*switch!* take it with you as you go somewhere as a portable. It's ingenious in my opinion. A lot cooler than the fad that is VR.

Kingdom Come Deliverence has weapon breaking too, and I like it.

But lets not kid ourselves.

Breath of the Wild took it to a whole new level of tedious. In most of those games it would take AGES for a weapon to break, and you had easy repair options. BOTW? LOL NOPE 10 SWINGS AND YOUR DONE BOI!

It wasn't very good... but then it's not an RPG like the others. more a puzzle with breakable tools. still sucked though, if I was honest about it. BOTW had more tedious elements than good ones.

- BotW had just as much reactivity and liveliness as RDR2. Both games had an insanely detailed physics engine which massively contributed to the "living and breathing world" praise I've heard for both games. If anything, it was BotW that pushed the envelope for environmental interaction and multiplicative gameplay in open-world games and RDR2 later followed suit.

- TW3 had some amazing writing, but traditional narratives in games (generally) aren't Nintendo's cup of tea.

- People tend to forget that Splatoon came out in 2015, and did the whole "wacky, innovative online shooter" thing a year before Overwatch and two years before Fortnite, even though it didn't reach the same mainstream audience.

- The Uncharted games are lovingly made glorified movies, and, despite all the time and care that was put into their creation, they don't push the industry forward in terms of gameplay (basic shooting/puzzle solving that has been prevalent in games for a long time, albeit with some cinematic spectacle in the case of Uncharted) or storytelling (one could substitute the plot of an Uncharted game with that of an Indiana Jones movie and I doubt most people would notice the difference.) Similar games like this year's God of War at least had some substance and mechanical depth compared to Uncharted.

- Superhero games aren't exactly what move the industry forward, nor do they exist in a genre of their own.

- I agree with your points about League/Dota.

Nintendo has no lack of innovation or creativity, it's just that their games/consoles are more hit and miss financially and aren't earth-shattering mainstream successes, leading the industry as a whole to (mostly) ignore their ideas.

Also, nice JJBA avatar. ;)

@XVision84: Fair enough but you should try it, it's a good game with fantastic attention to detail, also the performance has been massively improved since release.

I think of Kingdom Come Deliverance in the same way as CD:PR's Witcher 1 and I can't wait to see what War Horse's next game will be, it'll almost certainly have big improvements over Kingdom Come, which is already an excellent game.

There was a lot of news about Splatoon back in 2015, before Overwatch stole its thunder in 2016. And again, you can't directly compare F2P numbers (in this case, mobile downloads) to paid sales. In terms of actual sales, the difference is nowhere near as big as you're making it out. Also, PUBG and COD are realistic shooters, not cartoony shooters like Splatoon, Overwatch and Fortnite.

While Spider-Man PS4 was influenced by Arkham in some ways, by that same token Arkham was also influenced by Spider-Man 2. And there was a similar gap in release between SM2 and Arkham as there has been between Arkham and Spidey PS4. For a long time, Arkham series stood alone, with almost nothing else like it until Spidey PS4. Much like how The Dark Knight trilogy largely stands alone among superhero movies.

VR doesn't necessarily need to be for most genres. I don't see what VR could contribute to strategy games, for example. Where VR works best is first-person games, like we saw with RE7. The next evolution of first-person VR is motion control, which can greatly increase the realism and immersion. But VR motion control is still in its early stages right now, so we'll have to wait and see how it develops.

Google Glass failed when it first came out back in 2014, because of issues like its high price (much more expensive than VR), weight, and privacy issues. But then, VR also failed when it first came in the '90s. Just like how the market wasn't ready for VR back in the '90s, the market wasn't ready for AR in 2014. But in 2016, the tremendous success of Pokemon Go showed there is a huge potential market for AR. The following year, Google Glass Enterprise was launched for businesses, and it's since been adopted by a number of big companies (such as GE Aerospace). More recently, a new consumer edition of Google Glass has been announced, but we'll have to wait and see how it does.

BotW had plenty of the same kind of "insane" detail. Ever noticed how if you equip a fire weapon in a snowy area, it acts as a substitute to warm clothes or a cold resistance potion? Or how if you throw an apple and a piece of flint into a pool of water, the flint will sink and the apple will float? Or how enemies will panic if you take away their weapon, and will pick up any dropped weapons on the ground? Or how every single blade of grass in the game can be chopped or burned? Or how during a rainstorn, small puddles will dynamically form that evaporate when the rain stops? Or how if you shoot an arrow one-third of the way across the map, you can run that very distance and pick it up exactly where it landed? Or how if you draw a bomb arrow in a volcanic area, it will explode immediately? Or how NPCs will dynamically react to the weather by doing things such as running for the nearest cover when it begins to rain? Or how, when hunting, if you shoot an animal with a fire/ice arrow, the meat from said animal will either be frozen or cooked already? I don't doubt that RDR2 has similar levels of attention to detail, but let's not forget that BotW was released a year earlier for significantly weaker hardware.

- Agreed on BotW, it's one of the best answers I've found to my original question from everybody in this thread

- Honestly Splatoon just passed by me so it's possible I missed it. Never realized it did that!

- I agree Uncharted isn't special mechanically. I disagree regarding the story though. I know Uncharted doesn't have a deeply meaningful plot, it's a light hearted adventure. The things it does get right in terms of its story, though, is the writing and pacing. It isn't easy to make a story as fun as Uncharted's tend to be. They always have wonder, humor, and are generally a good package in/of itself. From my observations, Uncharted 2 raised the bar in terms of how cinematic games can be. There are a lot of sequences in that game which even influenced later Uncharted games (ex: reusing aspects of the train scene or car chase).

- I think Superhero games have the potential to imitate what Marvel did to movies. I truly hope that's the case, at least.

And thanks! :)

@kenshiro3948: Amen to that.

It's on my list of games I'll consider buying on sale. The problem is that there are so many great games coming out right now, I might not get to it :P. From what I've heard, it's a rather large time investment to get into the game because they've made it with realism/immersion in mind.