@kodiakmfl @Invertedzero I'm not even particularly bothered about cinematics. It gets there when it gets there, but gameplay I do, and overall I feel it's remained stagnant and possible taken a hit this gen, aside from online multiplayer

@Khalidosan @team_steve I don't know about the trees in your area, but mine don't look like a splodge of green pixels.

@Khalidosan I don't think it's abuse. Whoever likes it will buy it. It's better to have it for variety sake, than to let FPS eclipse the gaming world. Perhaps it will also act as inspiration for another game developer who will take unique attributes of this and mould them into a brilliant game with gameplay objects. That's what developers once upon a time used to do

@Khalidosan Certainly, although those games had a different overall objective to this. One of my favourite gaming environments on first playthrough was Metroid Prime, another in hindsight, Drakan. But these examples are few and far between the rushed sequels and brands pushed every year in the modern climate. Zelda OoT and MM, while not being particularly open world, completely captured that sense of exploration and somewhat dynamic and interactive environment (relative to it's time). Even Nintendo have failed to build on and evolve these aspects of the Zelda series since, becoming more artistic rather that detail driven. That's not to say they're not brilliant games, but it further illustrates the move away from this philsophy of design that the industry undertook in the last 10 years or so.

@colin__23 I agree it's not a game, just interactive art. I don't see that as a bad thing though. It isn't ruining any other gameplay experience, and provides a bit of variety to the gaming landscape.

@kodiakmfl A step towards this arguably should've been taken this generation, but instead they chose to go backwards in favour of making cinematics and convergent gameplay.

There are obviously worse examples, but thought to mention decent games for comparison and to contrast with this.

@Khalidosan Yes, there are some, but not many that really attempt to capture the environment and exploration that this game does, with the focus to aesthetics, detail and dynamic events. I see this game as more of an artistic statement to the world of developers, and a supplementary experience to people's game collections, that they will no doubt go back to enjoy every now and then. I honestly respect this game more than the new Assasins Creed or Dead Space. They're good games, but are forgettable experiences that do little to innovate or capture a unique experience

It's a shame it has no gameplay to it, but i'm glad it exists. It gives a throwback to what games should feel like to explore, come across new things, and be dynamic, instead of focusing so much on the story or combat. some games around the PS1/N64 to PS2/GC era succeeded in balancing these attributes (for their time), but since, in terms of what this game explores, we've seen a regression of these traits and features in most games rather than an exploration or progression of them. Even Zelda games themselves have suffered from this.

Well, it's a great game, even if there's little revolutionary about it. That's not an excuse to be lazy though, I still think we could have expected the series to evolve a bit more than what it has done over 4 games.