Zelda Has A BIG Problem

[@dragnjames2190]

Twilight Princess had it right with the weapon wheel. Skyward Sword perfected it with no pausing and a smaller wheel for consumables/shields. I don't know why Nintendo makes us pick through huge menus for everything with no favorites tab or anything for the 100s of items in Botw/Totk and Echoes.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

Me either - for all the flack SS gets, it seems to have done a lot of things right.

[@joshz2491]

I think its just design oversight to be honest. I would be willing to bet that the ui and menu navigate is thought up first and they don't think about it after that. Meaning that nobody makes adjustment after all the selectable items have been coded into the UI

[@NationX]

The wild part to me is that they DO implement a favorites list for AutoBuilds but nothing more. And that’s probably only because unsaved builds (aside from the ones you get from the Yiga clan) disappear as the list grows.

[@elcalabozodelandroide2]

Because ppl hated twillight princess *and* skyward sword.

[@KaitouKaiju]

​@@elcalabozodelandroide2That's an odd take as Twilight Princess in particular was very well received

[@thelastwindwaker7948]

I miss the scroll wheel from Twilight Princess. Much more convenient than your menu being a straight line.

[@TSPhoenix2]

For this to be a good idea Nintendo would need to fix their analog sticks. Flashbacks to constantly selecting the wrong tool in Animal Crossing New Horizons.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

It's been a long time since I've played TP but when I remembered that had a scroll wheel I almost couldn't believe it (after botw/totk and their menus). I definitely think that's a better solution in terms of menu-ing, but I also think it'd be great to reduce pausing in general.

[@n1nj4l1nk]

​@@LittleBeanGreenSS showed that you don't need to pause to use a selection wheel. If they had pointer controls on their next joycon and pro controllers as well as scroll wheels replacing shoulder buttons they could really nail it I think. I'd add that as well as meals/portions being consumed in real time that there should be done kind of limit to how much you can eat/drink in a certain amount of time, either a consumption cooldown or something more analogue like a fullness meter. Don't eat too many snacks Link, you won't have room for your octarok steak dinner!

[@quillion3rdoption]

It would be even worse than a straight line if it had all the options that TotK and EoW had (and BotW to a lesser extent). And TP itself had a problem with leaving irrelevant items on the scroll wheel, taking up unnecessary space.

[@wordedhalo6746]

@@quillion3rdoptiontbh if it had a few wheels for each category it could take a bit but I could see navigation being really fast

[@marche800]

My biggest criticism of Echoes of Wisdom was not being able to make custom presets for echoes. Having to search for a single echoes for 30 second was a massive pace breaker

[@LittleBeanGreen]

absolutely agree.

[@quillion3rdoption]

Both TotK and EoW seriously needed a "favorites menu" for Fuse items and Echoes respectively. I'd gladly sacrifice "last used" and "most used" options if adding another sort option would suck as well.

[@damiencouturee6240]

@@marche800 That's part of the reason I just barely beat Breath of the Wild and haven't done much but get Tulin and do shrines in Totk. It just gets kind of obnoxious to play tbh, and Totk just didn't hold my interest, I'll pick it back up and do some more shrines one day but I'm not into any combat because I just don't like it lol

[@WhitePaintbrush]

I also wish they collapsed near-identical items into a group/stack. The stack would be on the top-level “quick” menu and the item at the top of the stack would be the one you actually equip (I’d say the most recently obtained one should be on top of the stack by default) Then they could add a way to scroll through the stack to select a different item, or you could push a different item to the top of the stack in the Big Menu. Basically, having to scroll past four different beds, clay pots, and statues, is stupid. Since you scroll through the quick menu itself horizontally, you could traverse a stack vertically. I actually think it would be pretty straightforward. They could let you make custom stacks as well.

[@efad3215]

​@@WhitePaintbrushi.e. an "animal statues" section with all 4 in it or a "beds" section Yeah, that would be cool

[@GoeTeeks]

That's not even to touch on the annoying menuing of BotW and TotK's cooking and equipment upgrades (and to a lesser extent, EoW's smoothie is about as bad). Having to go through half a dozen lines of dialogue, select an item to upgrade (or make), watch an animation, get a fanfare for the item you upgraded/made, confirm you want to do more with some dialogue... really makes what could be a simple and quick process a lot more tedious.

[@damiencouturee6240]

I'll never understand that about any game. Monster Hunter is another good example. Gotta eat before hunts and sure, the animation is neat the first time, but why in the world is there no auto skip option who on earth wants to watch it every. Single. Hunt. For. Eternity???

[@LittleBeanGreen]

That and the mini-games. Those things take forever...

[@Trianull]

@@LittleBeanGreen ooooh the horse time trial minigame in Echoes of Wisdom having to wait for Falfa to nod for five seconds each time you want to play again... made getting the first course's top prize agonizing.

[@SuperSSSSooonniicccc]

@@damiencouturee6240 Some of them are different for events, and it's part of the experience. It's also always skippable, so it takes little time to skip. It's not too bad. The more major issue was base MH World where you had to walk to the lever to get up there in the first place. Setting it to the hub and Iceborne helped with this. MH Frontier Z (Japanese/Chinese MMO MH game) actually had Bentos, which acted like a party wide meal and is probably what you are more after. But MH is very focused on the experience of being in the world, so I don't see them doing this in mainline sadly.

[@slipperynickels]

modern zelda games have progressively gotten worse about actively disrespecting the player’s time and totk is where people writ large finally noticed. it had to get _that_ bad for people to finally notice.

[@Loaphs]

as much as i dislike the Wilds games UI, i have to say that using abilities felt good. once you knew where an ability was, it was quick to switch between them without slowing combat. i would have loved to see that implemented elsewhere, especially with weapons. take your idea of favoriting weapons or ammo types. having a quick menu like the abilities would make combat much more seamless

[@LittleBeanGreen]

well said.

[@Sir_Adam]

I hate the food in the three latest zelda games. I want the limit of only having 3 or 4 bottles of fairies/potions.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

i don't think you're alone

[@sandman8920]

I hate so many things with Zelda this generation. It’s sad it’s been my favourite franchise all my life. I’m 35

[@TiredGiant2112]

The problem with this is that people would complain that the Zelda franchise isn't improving if they kept using the same old bottle mechanic. Say what you will about the food mechanic, but they were the fresh take Zelda needed.

[@Sir_Adam]

@TiredGiant2112 Its too easy amd takes away from strategizing. the only way a player can run out out of food is if they were too lazy to make more. And that happens often because it becomes so tedious.

[@HenrikMyrhaug]

Skyward Sword's item wheels are a great feature that translates very well into analog stick gameplay. They are real time, easy to navigate, give you a limited number of options, and can easily have upgradable capacity. I personally think that it makes sense to have a "quick- inverntory" in the form of item wheels for selecting weapons, healing items, abilities etc, and a "storage inventory" where you can store more items, but cannot use them without first equipping them to your quick- inventory. I think both inventories should be in real time, so that if you open the storage inventory in the middle of a fight, you have to be really quick to be able to move items to your quick- inventory without getting killed, then you have to select the item from the item wheel to be able to use it. This would prevent you from being effectively invincible so long as you just keep pausing the game to heal, and would also encourage you to plan ahead what items you want to bring along before you get into battle.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

Sounds like a pretty good system. I like the idea of the two inventories, where one is more purposeful and one is bulk. It makes you have to be strategic instead of just pausing and pausing...and pausing.

[@DanielisAwesome52]

Not pausing in BotW/TotK would've been awesome. But that style game would benefit from a Monster Hunter Style pouch, make it so you have a huge store of items but away from camps or towns you'd only have a limited pouch keeping what you need to scroll through low and not letting you keep 100 Potions to heal for free

[@LittleBeanGreen]

seeing a lot of monster hunter comments - i haven't played it so i'll have to check it out

[@davidmartin1551]

This is the way

[@Sir_Adam]

@@DanielisAwesome52 Love this idea.

[@cherubin7th]

I would prefer to have many options like the cooking gives you, but you need to place them into quick access that is limited to like 4 slots and you heal without pausing. This also would allow to balance the difficulty much better. In TOTK the enemies often hit harder than in Dark Souls, so you kind of need this giant supply of food. But because they usually don't one shot you, it turns into: you get hit, you eat, repeat until win.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

In most cases, my gripe is exactly this. I don't care that you have bottomless pockets, I care that you can pause whenever you want to access them, and I care that that pausing interrupts the game.

[@TSPhoenix2]

@@LittleBeanGreen The more items there are, the more item management there will be, even games that handle it "well" still have a lot of downtime. In BotW it wasn't so bad as item management was mostly done in downtime, but TotK's new mechanics meant that item management was now a core part of the combat and puzzles. Same continues into EoW and it really hampers game flow. I remember seeing a clip of TotK combat with all the menu time edited out and feeling like it was an entirely different game to the one I was playing. In TotK for a while I decided to never let the UI prevent me from doing something, and counted how much time I was spending in menus vs outside them. Then I compared it to games like FF7 Rebirth and found TotK has more menu time than many modern action JRPGs, presumably because those have UIs focused on trying to keep you in the action and casting spells/etc as fluidly as possible. Given Nintendo's supposed gameplay focus, I really don't understand how this has passed the bar for them. Like what is their playtesting process and do the not see players shoving 20 apples into their face to avoid cooking as a problem?

[@jamesbell15]

I think another issue with EoW specifically is imbalance. The game encourages you to be creative and use various echoes to solve various problems. That's great. The issue is that some echoes just kinda suck lol. Obviously not all of them can be great but there are some that are just so bad that I pretty much never use them and mainly stick to, like, the same 10 echoes, at most. So the game wants you to use a variety of solutions, but some solutions are simply not practical compared to others.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

and there are 4 I can think of that only have 1 purpose - those statues from the Gerudo Sanctum.

[@jamesbell15]

@ exactly my point haha

[@TSPhoenix2]

I'd say there are a solid 50 useful echoes, the problem is that for most of those tie effort it'd take to find them on the menu I can probably just solve the problem with what I have equipped before I find the "optimal" one on the menu. Combat echoes for example, lots have their uses, but Wolfos or Darknut will have already killed them by the time I would have finished scrolling. If the game had voice commands where I could say Freezard and have that ready to go I would have used it a LOT more than I actually did. tl;dr the problem is the UI not the echoes.

[@WhitePaintbrush]

I think there is a lot of truth to the old adage “limitation breeds creativity.” The more tools in your toolbelt, the more likely it is that one, or a specific combination of, those tools has the power to solve several problems. And when you’ve got a solution, why go out of your way to look for another? In EoW it’s to the point that I don’t even feel like I’m playing a puzzle game.

[@jamesbell15]

@ in other words, less is more

[@BonkyBoko9]

What if they made a system using the down button on the d-pad for healing like other games, however in the actual pause screen you can map which food item you want to eat since each item gives different amounts of hearts

[@LittleBeanGreen]

I like the idea of still having food to eat that you can't do conveniently and healing that is quick.

[@adamkahmann2937]

Another reason why I believe Majora's Mask deserves some more props is that I think the transformation masks help mitigate this issue. Example: The Zora is both the boomerang and iron boots tied in one item slot. Although admittedly, the game isn't perfect (cough cough switching between Fire and Ice Arrows) I sure do hope this is an issue the Zelda dev team pays attention to in the future.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

I can't remember how the 3DS remake handled things but it would be nice to have purely a quick bar for masks, but you're right. This is what I meant by not giving us too many options. We technically have 4: Link, Deku, Goron, Zora, but they can do a bunch of different things.

[@elio7610]

One problem of equiping an entire item set rather than individual items is that there is less customizability of which items to have available at once, it is not necesarily always a problem, though, and can be more convenient than equipping items individually.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

@@elio7610 What I was trying to get at was something more akin to the 64 games - where you had 3 item slots for weapons. In the original releases, masks took up one of those item slots, but I'm suggesting having a mask only selection. So you would have 3 items available and 3 masks available at any time.

[@Loaphs]

@@LittleBeanGreen The Restoration Project. Its a mod for the 3DS Majoras Mask that solves that exact problem. Among bringing some n64 qualities they removed, they add all of the main masks to the D-Pad. Playing it rn and it works perfectly

[@3X3NTR1K]

One solution for healing could be to embrace the "eating food for health" angle differently by converting the hearts gained to a seperate resource. These will be a kind of vitality that is called upon with a single button press during battle, limited in healing amount and frequency according to what you ate (and possibly an upgradeable stamina-like mechanic). Actually eating the meal swould take long enough to not be viable in combat at all - solving that "eat 100 apples in 0.5 seconds" bit of weirdness. Special effects of food could also be reserved for when they are needed instead of set on a timer. What's nice about this is you can use food this way but also have (a limited nber of) potions for immediate emergency healing - returning value and importance to that more classic feature.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

I think separating the two is a good idea. Someone else in the comments suggested making food heal you over a longer period of time, regenerates hearts over 24 minutes or something. I definitely think potions are the way to go for immediate healing...plus we love bottles.

[@GulactonStudios]

The newer monster hunter games have fully customizable radial menus for drinking potions all the way to crafting items on the go, alongside a quick select item bar. If totk and botw had customizable radial menus they would be so much more enjoyable

[@LittleBeanGreen]

interesting - I've never played any of the monster hunter games but will have to check it out. I don't like the mixture of Zelda + crafting but I think it would be cool if Link could mix potions anywhere or anytime.

[@Sir_Adam]

Even so, I still prefer the og MH item menu.

[@blackshaddow5005]

NONONONONO... Don't Multi-Bind Buttons. I have NEVER seen a good implementation of multi-binding. You mix Abilities on one Button, that have nothing to do with each other. Grapple hook and boost jump may go together, because they are both movement based, but don't you mix in an attack on the same button

[@LittleBeanGreen]

You know how ultrahand can be used to stick stuff together but also in battle pull stuff apart? I'm thinking of it more like that...there isn't an actual 'attack' so much as one ability has more than one application. Maybe it's the same problem you're speaking of but I'm not sure it is. Someone will have to build a proof of concept.

[@blackshaddow5005]

@@LittleBeanGreen (needless to say, this is all my subjectiv opinion) "Ultrahand" did basically one thing. Grab something and move it. The "glue together" or "pull apart" is context sensitivity, which is fine. I have thought about the problem and actually I have played a game that had Multi binds (well kinda) done right, which is Mario 64. You could combine "Duck" (Z) and "Jump" (A) in various context sensitiv ways ways (Long Jump, High Backflip,....) Combining distinctiv actions to new actions is a good example for (kinda) Multibind a key Thing is, I don't know which button I'm actually pressing to jump. I press the "Jump"-Button. When the game tells me to jump, it's an easy task for me. If the game tells me to press the 'A' button... i have to look at the controller (I'm really bad in most quick time events) If I did understand you correctly, you said you wanted a Main-Button for the Item (with multiple distinct abilities), and a selector (on a secondary-Button) for which power of that item to use. I'd turn that around. Use main Buttons (A,B,X,Y) only for basic acions (jump,attack, interact) or customizable basic items (bow, boomerang, sword, shield...) and secondary buttons (L,ZL,R,ZR, arrow buttons) to infuse the basic action with a special ability or magic (which might be customisable on its own, if you want to have more than one type of magic)

[@LittleBeanGreen]

@@blackshaddow5005 Hm interesting. and fair enough. I'm not tied to which button does the trick as long as the trick can be done, as it were (and save me some pausing and menuing).

[@ketzerapathetic1414]

This is why the 3DS needs a true successor.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

That was the Wii U 🤣 In all seriousness, the Switch 2 seems ripe to make the 3DS/Wii U/dual screen thing the best it can be.

[@furosukki1301]

*hears siren noises in the distance*

[@terdfergeson23]

The Wii U was sweet, my buddy had one and I watched him play BOTW on it when it debuted for hours on end. Watching someone play a great game can be just as fun as playing it and having the second screen was an awesome feature. It’s sad that you cant do that with the switch while playing on a TV

[@tyedupinsmokestacey2935]

The Nintendo HDS

[@furosukki1301]

@@terdfergeson23 botw doesn't have a second screen mode for botw though, it only switches the tv output to the gamepad and vice versa

[@Diddz]

no pause advantage, that also means locking out gear switching once combat starts until combat ends (like how kingdom hearts works where pausing in combat blocks access to any menus while in combat)

[@LittleBeanGreen]

and we think this is a good thing yes?

[@Trianull]

Skyward Sword was definitely on the right track for item selection, but it meant every item had to put you into a specific mode, making them a little less snappy to use. That kinda system would be cool to see in a 2D Zelda game where there's more item buttons, but it would prove annoying as you'd have to move your thumb back and forth between the right stick and face buttons.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

The specificity of the SS items are their downfall. I think there's definitely an opportunity to make the world more interactive to give less items more chances to do things out in the wild.

[@quillion3rdoption]

@@Trianull Less snappy switching at least works for slow-paced puzzle solving tbf.

[@Trianull]

@@quillion3rdoption True, and considering Skyward Sword's focus on, well, the sword, it meant most of the items were more like utilities than weapons. Even the bow had more of a focus on picking off enemies from quite a distance to save yourself the trouble.

[@Varatho]

I'm a be real, having to hold down a button to access a menu is the problem. Every time I hold down the Dpad to bring up the "quick menu" I am reminded of how horrible the idea is in practice. Having multiple mappable buttons is the solution. There are at least 10 different buttons that could be mapped to a single power/item: Dpad, L/LZ/R/RZ, and if we are being totally honest, X/Y Leaving +/- to access the deep menu is just fine. And 10 quick access points is beyond reasonable. It would also help if they trimmed down the unnecessary gimmicks. Like why are Clockworks even a thing in EoW?

[@LittleBeanGreen]

This is really the problem - it completely interrupts the flow of the game. I maintain that with a bit more refinement with the echoes and the swordfighter form and automatons are unnecessary.

[@skadi2911]

It's baffling to me that Nintendo already solved this issue with Skyward Sword's item wheel but then reverted back to a tedious system. And they're clearly willing to learn, since they changed Link's abilities to a wheel in TOTK, compared to the linear menu from BOTW. To me, Monster Hunter's 5th generation already adressed this issue very well. The series has always struggled with item management until World. But they always made them a limited ressource that you can carry on yourself and being taken in real time while the monster can attack you. This not only prevents trivializing the game's healing, but it also makes it rewarding by comparison, because knowing when to heal is a skill in and of itself that you need to learn. Other games that also have lots of menuing and/or item management streamlined it in a rewarding way like Xenoblade Chronicles 3 with its fusion arts system instead of the single line from Xenoblade 1 and X. As you suggested, it can be done in various ways, either changing specific keys when you maintain a trigger pressed, or by using the right stick like Monster Hunter does nowadays. This way you could have preselected types of meals / clothing / potions preset on your radial menu shortcuts to use in the middle of a fight, but not have access to your entire inventory. You don't necessarly need to make it a lot more difficult by having a limited inventory like Monster Hunter or Skyward Sword. Simply prevent opening your full inventory to setup your radial menus when you're in a combat encounter. This way you could still spend the time you need setting up your shortcuts when you're just chilling in a safe place.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

makes perfect sense to me!

[@toddacious07]

If the next zelda game continues with the BOTW-style itemization and menuing, I think it would be interesting if they used a Resident Evil type grid for inventory. To be more player friendly, let’s say link would have two grids: one for equipment, one for resource. Your equipment grid would hold weapons, armor, quivers, bomb bags and utility items (torches, pickaxes, Korok leaves, an instrument for horse calling etc…). While your resource grid holds materials (wood, stone, ore, etc), food, cooked dishes, potions, and raw ingredients/material for such. This would theoretically encourage freedom in a way BOTW’s menus could not, since it’s an empty grid you can use and fill however you wish, with limited space being the only really limit. This also makes itemization more meaningful since you have to decide what to keep and what to leave behind as you adventure. And what you do choose to keep determines how well you can adapt to any given encounter, making preparation meaningful as well. Also-also, the extremely limited space makes it so that the divisive mechanic that which is weapon durability is no longer needed, as extremely limited inventory space is already enough of a limitation. Therefore, the actual freedom to prepare however you want BEFORE encounters is now what is encouraged and emphasized, as opposed to the “freedom” to be creative and adaptive DURING encounters because your options are forcefully (ironically) taken away from you through durability… Also-also-also, limited carry space for food means that you can’t spam heal to brute force encounters. Regardless of whether or not menuing pauses game time. All in all, I think that an RE-style inventory grid seems to rectify most if not all issues that come with the menuing format of recent Zelda games, without really having any of its own issues. At least on paper. Though RE used its inventory system for survival horror reasons, I think it would be an interesting idea if a Zelda game used a similar system for survival adventure instead.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

I don't think it's a bad idea but I hate inventory management like that haha

[@Sam_T2000]

I like the idea of real-time item usage, but a bullet-time slowdown for inventory management… so perhaps if you go through all of your prepared healing items in the midst of a fight, you can still conceivably reload, but you don’t have unlimited time to do so. also, a type of “fullness” meter could be nice, so you have to choose and time your healing item usage carefully, rather than just cramming down apples by the dozen every time you take a hit 🤷🏻‍♂️

[@LittleBeanGreen]

fullness reminds me of Ark: Survival, which sends me into a fever dream.

[@Goolix_Aero]

Bring back real time healing or at the very least limit the amount of food you can eat at one time. Maybe we need a stomach meter.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

Oh no then it becomes too much like ARK: Survival and I don't know if I could handle that 🤣

[@RealityRogue]

One things I like about Tunic is I have to plan what I want to hold before a battle or be quick about swapping during. Usually it’s 1 consumable 1 magic item, but if I really need 2 I’ll have to sacrifice the fact that I’ll have less leeway with magic

[@LittleBeanGreen]

and it has the added effect of not always knowing what something will do 😅 but yes, usually (for some reason I'm thinking specifically of frog's domain before you get the grapple hook), being able to overlook the area your going to fight in and get a lay of the land and then planning before jumping in recklessly is a lot of fun.

[@crumble2000]

Item wheels are the way to go! (as long as the joysticks work correctly 😅) A game that uses a mixture of this and the paused inventory menu is Phoenotopia: Awakening (a 2D Zelda-like. It's good, play it). You have a limited inventory for food (healing) and loot, and a separate one for tools/weapons. You can equip items from the menu, or you can set them on a wheel of eight items to fast-equip them without pausing. So you have a selection of eight items/weapons to keep the action fluid but you still need preparation for the right healing items since your inventory is limited and eating takes time. Technically this last point is a difficulty option. You can set it so that you are allowed to eat in the menu, but the points about quick weapon changing and limited inventory still stands. To get back to the topic of the video, honestly I don't have a problem with pausing when item scrolling, as long as it's well implemented. I would prefer a limited number of different items, but when the inventories are as big as they are in the last Zelda games, not being able to pause to select an item would ruin the experience and discourage me even more from engaging in combat.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

I think it's mostly a problem when it interrupts the flow of combat or (in my conceptual example) exploration. In those moments of fluidity, when Zelda may echo something like the overall gameplay style of Mario or Sonic, that's when I don't like pausing - when it destroys that flow. And it also, to me, breaks immersion. I'm not opposed to pausing in general, just when either a. you're doing it all the time to sort through so many items or b. when it interrupts the flow of the game while normally playing it.

[@NeoDeity]

This is not really a "big zelda problem." More a reality of adventure games. Don't really see the need to have an overcomplicated pausing system in Zelda. ❤

[@LittleBeanGreen]

My whole point is that the last three games have become needlessly overcomplicated demonstrations in pausing...

[@MyKnees3539]

While the 3ds was solid for item management, I didn’t like that it paused the game. Now the Wii U, that solved all my issues. Having everything on the gamepad in WWHD and TPHD was amazing. Never having to pause the game to look at the map (especially in the boat) or quickly drag items into the slots was so seamless. I fully believe that BotW had these features scrapped so the Switch version would be better, and they did show the map working like this in 2015. I also feel that WWHD and TPHD would be slightly worse on Switch, but will still be nice for more people to play them.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

you're probably bang on - what could've been

[@Izelor]

As I grow older, I don't mind longer menus. I don't even notice them. When you are a kid, time flows differently, so I understand the impatience.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

As I grow older, I have less time to play games so when I'm constantly taken out of the game to scroll through menus, that isn't very appealing.

[@Izelor]

@@LittleBeanGreen BotW and TotK are slow games. You are supposed to take your time with them, so I don't mind if I spend a few minutes every session scrolling through the menus.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

@@Izelor I thought I was supposed to be free from restrictions and play how I wanted?

[@Izelor]

@@LittleBeanGreen adventure games are generally slower games. You are allowed to choose the way you approach your quests and puzzles but the core of the game remains the same.

[@obits3]

This can easily be fixed in both TOTK and Echoes. Change the first level inventory slider to only be items you’ve selected to be there with a secondary press brining up the full menu. That would give players freedom to speed up menu flow as a payoff for better understanding what they need in battle. Worse players would still have the full menu at the cost of more inefficient menu scrolling, so there would be a real world incentive to get good.

[@QnjtGWonQNqVsbYyzjx4]

This end up making playing less experimental. It’s easier to access the favourites than browsing the full menu. I suggest also have a recommended option that have not only favourited item suitable for that situation, but others as well. Besides, add a secondary menu for items of the same type would be nice instead of putting them in the same menu

[@LittleBeanGreen]

It stills feels like, based on the design of these games, that pausing is built in to the gameplay, which to my mind, is not good. I think less menu-ing is one way to fix that but the other is not designing games with soooooooooooo many tools.

[@mybumstudios1989]

Me and my sister are developing a 2D zelda-esque and have attepted to address these problems... We consolidated 22 key items into 8 items that have multiple actions (i.e. the bow can also fire sleep darts or a grappling hook) through upgrades. Holding Y will bring up an item wheel with 8 slots. One can select by pointing the Dpad and then releasing X. Then the different actions are performed with Y, A, and B. Other inventory like healing items, maps, etc. has been grouped into 8 categories that are handled similiarly with the Dpad in a menu accessed with -

[@LittleBeanGreen]

And how do you think that solution works? Do you find yourself doing a lot of pausing?

[@mybumstudios1989]

@LittleBeanGreen I don't understand your query? Can you rephrase?

[@LittleBeanGreen]

@@mybumstudios1989 Does having 8 items and a button that pulls up a scroll wheel to switch between them reduce pausing? Or do you still find that you're doing a lot of pausing?

[@mybumstudios1989]

@LittleBeanGreen Yes. The X button then completely removes the necessity of a menu where one would assign many items to a few item slots. It's also not a scroll wheel. Think of it as an octagon, and you 'point' at the item you want equipped upon X's release.

[@TommySkywalker11]

Xenoblade 2 and 3 handle ability swapping really well Each attack is set to a face button input, you can set which attack goes to which input In 2 you have a group of options on the d pad to swap to different sets of attacks to take over the face buttons which you can also set the positioning of While in 3 you have a preset order of swapping between characters and different movesets, 3 more attacks set to the dpad, and holding the trigger buttons brings up a whole other set of attack and ability options on every button

[@LittleBeanGreen]

never played it. will have to check it out

[@TommySkywalker11]

@LittleBeanGreen it's the series that heavily inspired BotW/TotK and made by the same development studio, some of the best and biggest games Nintendo has ever put out

[@cyprienramis1304]

I think the item satchel might have been inspired by the doppleganger soul from Castlevania DoS.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

I feel like it could've had its place in Zelda, but was immediately dropped after SS

[@TheKritken]

You never have to pause a Metroid game, you never have to pause banjo kazooie despite having tons of abilities, hmmm

[@LittleBeanGreen]

If they can make it work...

[@shirrenthewanderer414]

I played RPGs so many times, I kind don't have the problem with going to through menus. I pretty much know what I'm going to do before I need to do it, and it's rare I can't find what I'm looking for (and I usually don't need half the crap the game gives me even though I'm a big item user).

[@LittleBeanGreen]

How would you feel about having fewer things but being able to do more with them?

[@shirrenthewanderer414]

@@LittleBeanGreen That does sound like a good idea,

[@igorcosta5482]

The only thing I can think to solve this is the game has an learning system to assist the player. Exemple: when you arrive in a cold ambience and open the menu, it opens instantly in the rito set to be switched. But if instead you’re fighting a Lynel in cold, it opens instantly in a cold resistance recipe so you can keep the defense of the atual gear.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

Or you combine those sets into 1 thing and the player chooses when to wear it. Or you give Link a spell that resists cold and you don't have to buy armor.

[@TormaXimnus]

The description of using the controller's face buttons for menuing reminds me of how hotbar/crossbar keys are handled in FFXIV. You have a dedicated button that allows you to move through the different hotbars one at a time, or you can press and hold the hotbar change button while selecting one of the 8 possible face buttons (ABXY and the D-Pad) to select a specific hotbar. Each of them are fully customizable as well, and with having eight button selections that combined with either trigger button, that gives you 16 possible options to work with. Obviously this can easily be seen as massive overkill for a Zelda title to work with, but the same general concept can be applied. If you have the RB/R1 button mapped to your main weapons and the LB/L1 button mapped to the shield, then you you could use ABXY to switch between four different hotbar options. From there you could use the RT/R2 and LT/ L2 buttons to in conjunction with the face buttons to select and immediately use different weapons or items either on their own or in combination with each other.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

That may be TOO many options for a Zelda game, but parsing it down a little I think would work...

[@TormaXimnus]

@LittleBeanGreen too many options, eh? Hmmm. *looks at ToTK in hmm*

[@LittleBeanGreen]

@@TormaXimnus that's what I mean!

[@TormaXimnus]

@ How about this, then? Bumper buttons for the sword and shield aka dark souls and the trigger buttons can be used to access and use items and enhancements on the fly. The d-pad could be something like elemental enhancements using items or a magic gauge and the abxy buttons could be for item usage. You could even use the bumper buttons for item combinations while pressing and holding the item and item select buttons, suck as the Hawkeye bow or bomb arrows as an example. You could easily do a lot with just this alone, especially if you expand on the item combination idea. Same for having hybrid elements by introducing the possibility of selecting two primary elements at once later in the game. I’d be more than happy to cover some ideas with greater detail if you’re interested.

[@kimarimoi]

Honestly, a big part of it is the limitations of gamepads. Terraria and Stardew are (primarily) PC games, where you have a keyboard (dozens of buttons that even non-gamers are familiar with) and mouse (point directly at the item you want) to eliminate the main annoyances of games with many potential actions. Button-combos and select wheels can help... but those were the main reason I couldn't finish TotK. You still need multiple inputs for every action, it's more elegant than a menu but also harder to remember. Echoes needed at least 3 active slots for summons, and a 2D grid to select them from instead of one giant line. TotK was kinda just too complicated for its own good.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

The point about PC games is a good one and something I didn't even consider. There were times where I was playing totk and I had to stop and remember what buttons to push to do what I wanted.

[@doubleg281]

In BOTW style games meals shouldn't heal you but regenerate hearts over time for the 24 minute day and grant long lasting weak buffs. Potions should be instant healing in battle or short lasting strong buffs but limited to the number of bottles you've collected

[@LittleBeanGreen]

That's interesting - the regenerative bit. I think the games don't lean into the buffs enough so that's something else I'm considering. Thanks for the comment!

[@NukeOTron]

Real-time swapping is what multiplayer Zelda-likes need. Pausing in the middle of a game usually frustrates the other players around you. The Mana series is doubly guilty of its stop-and-go gameplay because you have to dig items and spells out of a menu in most cases. That being said, in my own personal experience, using the shoulder buttons one-push-at-a-time to sift through item menus in real-time is a bad idea when you've got a boss chasing you. I've made a game that does that, and it made me want to push the Pause button to get what I need. Then again, my goal with that game was making a multiplayer Zelda-like that, if necessary, can control both characters with one XBox controller when playing solo.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

Oh god I never even thought of multiplayer.... My thinking is that it won't really be 'sifting' - by a certain point you should know what button has each power. So you could be sprinting, then just hit R + X and have switched a power. In my head at least that doesn't seem too taxing but. Sounds like your scenario may be a bit different.

[@PrimalScrub]

3 games with bad menus in a row. Maybe Nintendo is trying to set a record?

[@LittleBeanGreen]

Certainly seems like they're trying!

[@joseluispcr]

game developer and zelda fan here: modern zelda needs to give too many options because AAA titles diferentiate themselves by the ability of the studio of making lots and lots of assets. breath of the wild initate a new trend in zelda, huge world and lots of equipament and itens. in old zeldas every item matter, it was almost like one diferent mechanic each. in modern zelda is not that much. in the echoes of wisdom they made basicly almost all game assets into itens. this is WAY diferent from the old zelda. zelda needs now huge menus, cant be avoided, because they arent making anymore each item unique. But I truly liked your gamedesign concept of having more options easily accessible than usual

[@LittleBeanGreen]

I think they could think about it from the opposite direction. You can still have lots of assets, but a select few items that can interact with them in a lot of ways. Make the world even MORE interactable.

[@gydgeza]

I disagree with the no pause healing. The wild games were already heartbreaking to play for some people I know who grew up playing and loving lower difficulty games like wind waker, twilight princess and skyward sword and could already barely get through the wild games as is. This would have just made it a game entirely not for what used to be zelda fans.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

In those old games, you had to find ways to heal, you didn't have an endless menu of options available to you. Echoes of Wisdom definitely feels like those older, lower difficulty games and it still has the same pausing to heal issue. I would consider meeting you half way with rebalancing just how much damage some enemies do, but I'd also say not every enemy you encounter is meant to be bested the first time you encounter it. Understanding that and combining it with armor upgrades makes pausing to heal becomes less critical. I think any over-pausing in general is a detriment to the immersion.

[@gydgeza]

@@LittleBeanGreen I consider design that deliberately uses fail states as a "teaching tool" to be a failure of game design (unless the game very specifically revolves around the mechanic, like souls games do, but zelda is far from that), so I can't agree with that point of yours. I actually think echoes was a step in the right direction as you only have the single excessive men to navigate instead of the three-four-odd the wild games do. I do agree that the healing there is unnecessary, especially combined with the beds, though i've been told the smoothies actually make a difference on hero mode. I can see a case made for real time healing there, especially since you have the time to pop a nap in between even boss attacks. But I don't see it working well for the wild games without significant changs to other mechanics.

[@taemien9219]

I was thinking of something similar. While I would love to see an end to excessive menuing, the idea of removing healing while paused would be a fundamental change that could have repercussions beyond simple game mechanics and difficulty. When playing Legend of Zelda or Adventure of Link, you do need to select a healing item or spell and have it preped to use it in a moment, or to be able to pause and select and hopefully get the effect off as soon as you return to action, giving a slight sense of urgency, but also giving the player essentially a 'time out'. This continued with potions in Link to the Past, and some of the 3D Zelda games. The divergence was felt with Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom where you did all of your healing in menu. Personally I would like to see a return to the original two games where you select an item or ability and then have to use it. Or you can select them prior to the engagement and have them at the ready when you need them. I personally think this fits the theme of the franchise better (having been in the majority of the games) and serves as a decent compromise to what you see in BotW/TotK and what is being suggested by the video author. Just because Dark Souls does something, doesn't mean it will work well or play well in a Zelda game. I'm not saying I'm 100% against it. But it will fundamentally change how combat works in Zelda and to be honest... when we play Zelda, we expect combat to be Zelda combat, and not something else. I do agree with some limits though. In Legend of Zelda you got one heal from a Blue Potion, and 2 uses from a Red. You had your heart containers x2 or x3 depending one what your potion you had if any. In Adventure of Link it was more complex as you had Life which cost MP and MP was determined by how many Magic Containers you had (16mp per), and Life cost so much magic based on your Magic Level. Life would restore 3 hearts on each cast. Giving you a set limit on how many times you could cast it before finding blue or red magic decanters to refill it. BotW and TotK however allowed pretty much unlimited healing. You were limited by how many meals you could cook, but the limit was incredible and you could in theory with enough prep (and you didn't have to face major dangers to do this) fill in each slot with full + max heart food. Making some challenges trivial. The result was that some challenges expected the average player (you know.. the players that don't make those crazy Lynel killing videos) to simply 'tank' hits and constantly heal themselves. This made the game difficult as you mentioned in some areas with some players barely skating by. Which challenges tend to be more fun in general? Early ones where your mistakes can be learned from on the fly and you use healing to cover that a bit but are limited in how much you can heal. Or the later ones where mistakes are devastating and you simply have to have an inventory full of healing to just attack, get hit, heal, and repeat? I personally did have fun with BotW and TotK's combat. But I do consider myself an advanced player. But even then I did find some parts in those two games a tad frustrating at times when trying to learn new encounters. And having to go around farming specific materials to craft meals in order to have a chance at learning new patterns and movesets from foes. Where in earlier installments I just went to see a vendor or nab a faerie with a net to ensure I get enough slack to learn a new boss or environment. BotW and TotK really only start getting really fun when you reach a point where you no longer feel the need to farm healing items. Unfortunately not every player gets there. And many of us players don't understand what that is like.

[@wordedhalo6746]

@@LittleBeanGreenor just play Dark Souls

[@ham-n-jam]

​@@gydgeza I feel like the vast majority of deaths in the Wild games come from getting 1-shot, which usually just makes it feel like you're doing an encounter way under-equipped (unless it's a death due to random explosives lol). If you're not getting 1-shot, food is pretty much so abundant after a few hours that you might as well just instantly pause and fully heal. I reckon the older Zelda games' more limited healing item slots made the encounter balance much better, along with there being only a few places in the game you can actually create/buy potions. You only had maybe a few potions which heal like 5+ hearts at a time which you don't want to waste straight away, so you often go between encounters at half health. Your playstyle changes at low health as you try to risk fighting more enemies hoping they'll drop hearts, or you play more defensively by weaving around enemies, hoping to make it to the next safe area. That tension from the risk/reward is extremely compelling. To BotW's credit, the insane 1-shot damage of the Guardians actually worked in their favor, making them really intense and fun encounters. It's a shame TotK doesn't really have an equivalent (maybe the hand enemies? ehh)

[@looptexxpage569]

I think inventory wise the best zelda games were ALBW and OOT/MM (for me at least)

[@LittleBeanGreen]

I think I'd tend to agree with you - especially the 3D remakes

[@ojhat]

I think the best i've seen in the OOT romhacks is one that keeps the standard 3 Cs for main item usage, then adds alot of other options to the D-pad, things that are like toggles, masks, eye of truth, or switching equipment, and they made it so the L buttom switched the D-pad between two sets of 4 items, and pressing an equipment button could cycle through the equipment on the fly, e.g. normal boots, iron boots, hover boots, normal boots again, repeat. And that 2-level D-pad is 8 options accessible easily! Skyward sword definitely made the game feel the least likely to have interrupted flow. Two circle menus complete with a little tied motion control goes MILES forwards in progress. That non-interruptive menu navigating was SMOOTH.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

smooth indeed! for as maligned as that game is, that was certainly done right

[@crimsonsea9985]

They can double the number of Item slots by allowing you to assign two Items per button where you hold another button to switch between them. For example let's say you have a bow and bomb assigned to the LT C button. Pressing the button alone let's you use the bow. But holding L and pressing LT C button gives you bombs. This makes you go to the menu far less often and makes gameplay smoother.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

kinda similar to what I suggested here for one item at least.

[@quillion3rdoption]

Thoughts: * Thank you for pointing out that pausing's always been a problem, even in the pre-Wild games. * Cross Code looks like it learned from the Style Switch from Devil May Cry in 4-onward (later backported to 3's re-releases). * THE BIG ONE: That's really a bold statement asking that Zelda outright LIMITS options. But honestly, I actually agree to some extent. It feels like the Wild Era games swapped out those "filler" Rupee chests with "weak" materials, which is better for worldbuilding but sucks for inventory clutter. I think they should focus on making a few extremely versatile items (even "small/expendable" items) instead of overspecialized items, problems that TP and SS suffer in their "tools" and BotW, TotK, and EoW suffer in their "small items."

[@LittleBeanGreen]

I think if they make the world even more interactive, they can have a few select items that interact with the world (or combine to interact with it) in multiple ways.

[@quillion3rdoption]

@@LittleBeanGreen To its credit, BotW and TotK do just that with its "tools" (slate and arm runes in this case); I guess they shunted the "overspecialization" to the small items.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

@@quillion3rdoption that's fair enough but there are also weapons and shields and bows. TotK doubles down with all the fusions too.

[@painuchiha2694]

I didn’t have an issue with totk menu scrolling since you don’t need that many different arrow head but echoes of wisdom echoes scrolling is pretty bad and that’s the only big flaw with the game. I do wish for a Zelda game with less interruptions. They need gameplay ideas that don’t require a giant inventory lol

[@LittleBeanGreen]

Exactly - to me it really hurts immersion.

[@Graphomite]

I have to disagree on the context sensitivity thing. The lack of context sensitive abilities was a deliberate choice by developers and an integral part of BotW dynamic gameplay and game feel. The lack of context sensitivity is modern Zelda's special sauce and what sets it apart from other open world games.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

so do you think in a game where the ocean is a huge part of the world, and unlike botw where you can't explore underwater, that if you had abilities that worked differently when completely submerged that that would make a game feel less dynamic?

[@Pharagill]

I'm playing through BOTW for the first time, and this issue is starting to wear on me - particularly with the gear. "Climbing a big wall, gonna put on my climbing clothes. Oh, now Link is cold. Change to warm clothes. Here comes electric keese, change to rubber gear. Back to full warm clothing to fight an ice lizalfos so it can't freeze me." Pause, pause, pause, pause, pause. You can't even change into a full outfit with one button press, have to select each item individually. It's like half the play time in some areas it's just a Link dress-up simulator lol.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

I'm sure you've just created the next spinoff game in the Zelda series hahahaha

[@DNotzz]

They need to give us a set number of health vials. And make a cool mechanics to fill them back up. You could have areas with unlimited vials, and then dungeons and other areas with a set number or a set number that could be refilled at checkpoints. There’s so many thing they could do besides have us constantly pause to eat food or meals. I hate it.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

In a game like CrossCode, there is a clear distinction between being in and out of combat. In combat, you can use healing items that require time to use, out of combat you heal automatically. I'm not saying Zelda needs to steal this idea, but I think you're on the right track that certain areas could present more of a challenge than others based on how easy it is to heal.

[@TRUESEPH]

I don’t understand why they don’t have a radial menu kinda like TP/SS except they could nest items into categories. You could quickly select a category in the radial menu & then keep ‘blooming’ it deeper & deeper until you get to what you want. It would be like 3 quick flicks of the wrist (using the gyroscope).

[@LittleBeanGreen]

That would at least be a big step in the right direction. Or allow us to customize those categories so maybe it's on two quick flicks.

[@ominouscrabmeat]

Thank you so much for working with me LBG!!!

[@LittleBeanGreen]

THANK YOU.

[@ominouscrabmeat]

anytime!

[@WordsInVain]

01:17 I agree that horizontal scroll menu quickly becomes a nightmare... Though they could have alleviated the burden by dividing it into two rows after a certain number of items...

[@LittleBeanGreen]

maybe - I still think there are now just too many things to choose from at every turn

[@Gigi4u]

How i would fix fuse is adding autofuse and add a favorite items category thag you can make to quick select an item without needing to scroll for ages. Autofuse works when you hold your bow and go in to fuse menu and press Y while on lets say a fire fruit. You would now have that itam be locked in as your auto fuse material which would be shown in a small icon on the creen so you dont forget that you still have it on. This goes away as soon as you put your bow away, auto fuse should be something you do deliberately and not in a pinch, for that spamming regular arowss exists. But you you got the distance you go activate autofuse and you can rain down a hailstorm of fused arows.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

could've been useful but I think fuse is gone after totk

[@Gigi4u]

@LittleBeanGreen they should bring it back in some shape or form. I don't want to go back having my inventory be filled with 999 monster parts because they practically do nothing. I can live without ultrahand in the next game but I just hope fuse returns even if it's only limited to arrows.

[@NoNameBoi9987]

I think that the power wheel from BotW and TotK would provide a much simpler and streamlined solution if converted to a quick item selection menu. You wouldn’t even have to pause the game to do it.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

Some version of Twilight Princess had this and I think it worked pretty well

[@raffertythomson]

the fact that the menus pause in botw make the game so much easer because you can just heal right before you were about to die

[@LittleBeanGreen]

that's considered the problem.

[@MrLinkDay]

Multi-buttom options solve a bunch of issues with pausing all the time, but you gotta solve one more after that: acessibility. It is a hard thing to balance.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

fair enough - now I need to find someone to code this for me to see how it would work 😂

[@lozm4835]

I don't mind it for weapons. The time to be able to tactically assess which weapon you wanna pull out makes up for the time loss. A quick switch might be nice but not a necessity. But the MATERIALS. Especially with how many utility materials have +1 fuse like Keese eyes. I just wanna be able to easily snipe Aerocudeas and flying Gibdos. I already know what I want to use and I have the time to think when I pull my bow out in the air. Gaaaaaah.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

I'm not even suggesting getting rid of it all together but just like you said, limiting it when it's become so tedious!

[@ebbepettersson98]

I have no problem with how the old games use items but i dont like how breath of the wild games brake items and gives you too mutch healing and the game feels less like zelda and closer too something like elder scrolls. Good games in there own right but if i want too play somethimg thatvis not zelda i wouldnt play a zelda game and i would feel the same if elder scrolls made a game similer too the old zelda games they need too stop

[@LittleBeanGreen]

Fair enough. I think the 2D games, especially Link's Awakening and the Oracle games have a lot of pausing for item swapping but it certainly isn't worse than the latest installments.

[@majicweather4890]

I love Zelda 64, I think they need to go back to basics with a similar direction as that game but just expand on what was so loved about OOT. The mechanics and ideas of OOT, with the size of botw.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

some would view that as 'going back' and Nintendo won't go for that I don't think. Although I think you're right in that they should experiment with bringing those mechanics/ideas into the open world and see how they jive.

[@majicweather4890]

@LittleBeanGreen Nintendo doesn't have a strict view on that though, they literally went back to Zelda on the NES when designing BOTW, if you search for the official making of the game videos, Nintendo literally made an entire NES style BOTW game as a way to "story board" the game. Also, adding dungeons is "going back" which BOTW didn't focus on, yet they Went Back to dungeons in TOTK. User Interface and Menus stream lining is timeless design style. So OOT inspired menu and UI. But with expanse real estate of Open World. Add like tons of amazing dungeons and secrets galore and bring back the fishing mini game lol

[@LittleBeanGreen]

@@majicweather4890 But they try to capture the 'original essence' of the first game in EVERY installment they make. Nintendo used the OG Zelda because it was easy to make - it was to demonstrate that the logic behind the physics and chemistry engines made sense. There's a conversation to be had about whether the 'dungeons' in TotK are really dungeons or just Divine Beasts 2.0 in dungeon skins. It'd be great to streamline the menus by making a game that made you have to mandatorily use them as least as possible... Yes, let's get fishing.

[@TSPhoenix2]

@@majicweather4890 "they literally went back to Zelda on the NES when designing BOTW" From what I understand this is somewhat misinterpreted, in a later interview the developers discussed how the guiding vision for BotW was actually the piece of TLoZ artwork where link stands on a cliff and looks out at the horizon (the one the BotW's opening scene replicates). Personally I think the goal of replicating the feeling of TLoZ rather than TLoZ itself is sensible, but my problem is while BotW nails the feeling of starting TLoZ, it completely fails at capturing the feeling of finishing TLoZ. People love to fixate on that TLoZ-styled prototype, but really all that has is the moment-to-moment of wandering around the overworld. TLoZ was actually designed dungeons first with the overworld added later to stitch them together, which is why IMO saying BotW goes back to TLoZ is a snappy marketing line to reel in lapsed fans and little more.

[@Lamphia]

Most of the complaints i see boil down to "i think the game is too easy this way" but thats the point, theres many "harder" legend of zelda games, but not enough series that cater to such a variety of consumers. The insta pause helps people with an "excuse" to need it (such as kids, older people or anyome with disabilities) but honestly it also helps me, because i dont want my games to be hard, or to make me "prepare" better or force me to "get gud"

[@LittleBeanGreen]

I think there's definitely a more careful balancing act that can be struck here (and that has been discussed elsewhere in the comments) that the game can maintain some semblance of its current difficulty and still lessen the number of pauses necessary to engage in every action.

[@tyedupinsmokestacey2935]

Sooooooo…..when are we getting another video about your Zelda game?

[@LittleBeanGreen]

Once I figure out all the moving pieces and the artist I'm working with draws it 😅 ...I'm hoping come the new year there'll be a lot to show.

[@tyedupinsmokestacey2935]

@ heck yeah, I love the idea of videos like that. I started my own channel a while back for that purpose and am still in much the same stage haha 😓

[@LittleBeanGreen]

@@tyedupinsmokestacey2935 It's tough! Especially when you have a certain vision and want to work out every little detail and don't quite have the skills to do it haha

[@tyedupinsmokestacey2935]

@ I totally agree, finding the motivation is tough because I don’t want to force myself through it otherwise it’ll make a product I’m not happy with

[@LittleBeanGreen]

@@tyedupinsmokestacey2935 Yeah I feel that - it needs to meet my standard ha

[@theshinyqueen6013]

I wish instead of a straight line like it is in TotK and EoW I wish it would pull up some kind of a grid.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

I've seen some mockups of this and, although it may be better, it still seems like a lot of options.

[@braydenjones6561]

Healing "Do you think they could have implemented a 'limited healing items during combat' rule with a cooldown timer? For example, maybe you could use up to five healing items per minute or two. This would allow you to pause to heal, but you wouldn’t be able to fully restore health at will, avoiding the spamming of healing items while paused. Another approach might be a slight slowdown mechanic while healing in real time, giving the player a bit of buffer without fully pausing the game. I wonder what other workarounds could be available if a developer thought real-time healing was too punishing, but spamming items while paused was too easy. Of course, there could be drawbacks. With the slowdown mechanic, players might exploit it to slow down combat and gain extra reaction time. And with the timed item limit, it might feel restrictive or messy if players feel limited by a timer rather than skill-based actions like running to a safe spot to heal. But maybe with the right balance, one of these approaches could work. Another idea for real-time healing could be to adjust the speed at which healing occurs. Healing could be made very fast, even if players could still technically take damage while healing. The time it takes to heal could be adjusted to be as slow or as fast as developers find appropriate. (And, of course, this is assuming blocking healing while the game is paused, in combat). Quick Menus These are great points. I didn’t notice many issues with the quick menus in Breath of the Wild since they were mainly for switching weapons, shields, and bows. With a set maximum number of each, it rarely felt overwhelming-maybe a bit near the end of the game. But in Tears of the Kingdom, I’ve definitely noticed the 'lag' of scrolling through the quick menu for the Fuse ability, with so many items available. This menu, designed for quick, intuitive access, can feel tedious as the list grows, making it harder to find specific items. With an optimally sized list, though, I think these menus are fantastic! I really liked them in Breath of the Wild because they kept the immersion intact. Instead of fully pausing in the inventory, you could quickly switch weapons or items on the fly. Radial Menus vs. Linear Menus Some people might feel that radial menus would improve these quick-access options, but I think the linear format works best as long as there aren’t too many items. Radial menus tend to be more limiting because they only hold a few options comfortably and require precise control, like moving diagonally. This can make them challenging to use in fast-paced gameplay, especially if joystick drift is a factor. In contrast, the linear format in Breath of the Wild works well because it allows you to scroll left and right quickly, giving access to a few more options without feeling cluttered. It’s easy to understand and feels intuitive, even for new players. Radial menus also require remembering where items are positioned in 2D space, which can feel more complex than a straightforward left-to-right list. With the linear format-especially when the list is a manageable length-it’s easy to navigate and keeps players immersed in the game. I think Nintendo made the right choice in Breath of the Wild by using a list for quick swaps. It maintains accessibility, and as long as the list doesn’t get too long, it really does feel like the quickest option! Multi-Binding Inputs As pointed out by blackshaddow5005 in the comments, while your controller scheme idea might sound okay at first, I’d agree that it could become very messy and hard to remember which buttons handle what. It requires a lot of abstract thinking (constantly remapping everything) and isn’t as intuitive as having modifiers that adjust the specific function of a button. The modifier buttons can affect each button/action in different ways. This approach is more intuitive because the player can remember each button and its associated action, along with its modified variants. This avoids the need to set buttons repeatedly and risk forgetting the current layout, which can make it hard to keep track of what each button does. It sounds like you might be thinking of the way many Zelda games let players set certain items to specific buttons and use them directly. But that approach is simple-set a button once, and it’s ready when needed. What you suggested, though, involves a list of options tied to each button. So, rather than simply setting a button with an action, you would need to remember how to access the list, then set the action, and then use it. It’s more abstract, which makes it less intuitive than simply having a button with a main action and modifiers for variations. The shoulder buttons (L, R, ZL, ZR) work great as modifier buttons. You might think you can access more options the way you planned it (clicking A, B, or X to set Y while holding a shoulder button like R), but you could use each shoulder button to get four additional actions on top of the default action (e.g., L + Y, R + Y, ZL + Y, ZR + Y, and Y alone). That’s five options instead of just three. If some of these shoulder buttons are already assigned specific functions (like ZL for targeting), you might have fewer options available, but it would likely still be more intuitive-and probably still offer more options-than the alternative approach. If you’re worried about each of these shoulder buttons having context-specific functions (like R for a special variant of an action and ZL, ZR, or L for something else entirely) and only want a single button like Y for a certain set of actions, then you might be more limited in your options. But it seems you’d still benefit from this approach in terms of how much more intuitive it is. It feels like you tried to take the 'set item' concept from inventory management and apply it in an abstract way to 'set button' in a list of abstract buttons, which isn’t as clear to the player as it could be. Another idea is to use the D-Pad to change out a set of the A, B, X, Y buttons. Pressing the Right D-Pad button, for instance, could map these primary buttons to all of the Y-related actions you wanted. However, changing out sets like this comes with its own drawbacks. If you have primary actions that you’d like the player to always be able to perform, like jumping, this approach might not be ideal since it could interfere with those core actions.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

the only problem I find with the d-pad is that I have to take my hand off of the stick that makes me move

[@Radien]

As a big Zelda and Tunic fan, I want to speak an unpopular opinion: making menus accessible in real-time will NOT make them unobtrusive. Tunic is fantastic, but it can't seem to decide whether you're supposed to be able to access your menus in battle. Since many of the fights are tough as nails, the last thing you want to be caught doing is using a pause menu resembling Link to the Past to assign items to slots. I consistently avoid changing items in battle, which means niche items like the Lure almost never get used when I'm playing. BotW and TotK clearly have a problem, but it's a trade-off, because pausing the action for menus mostly solves the problem of menu selections getting you killed. The real issue is when you open a menu for a split-second change, but you're stuck navigating menus long enough that it throws off your groove, and you get slammed by the very attack you're trying to counter. The only solution I can think of is simplification. BotW, TotK, and reportedly EoW all three have extremely packed menus. Games that want to commit to exciting in-game action just can't do this. The choices in menus accessible during battle need to be slimmed down, and the decisions involving tons of items need to be relegated to preparation. Whether it's in 1985 or 2024, we are operating with a limited number of buttons, and those limits will always get in the way when hundreds of possibilities are introduced. If Zelda doesn't learn restraint, we will continue to have this problem. Also, the "single row of items" used for "quick" menus in BotW, TotK, and EoW is just horrible design. If there are so many that they won't fit on the screen, it's no longer a quick menu.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

I agree with you - I don't like Tunic's 'no pause' menu either (especially when I push B to leave the menu and it ends up reassigning my items 😅). The point there is that you mainly have to consider your plan of action before running into battle, one in Tunic's case you'll often have to experiment with because, as you well know, you're going to get killed a lot....The difference is that Tunic has fewer items to choose from which makes that experimentation quicker, especially as you begin to figure out what things like the cards do. To your point, Zelda needs to learn restraint in this regard because right now there are just waaaaaaay too many things.

[@raulzilla]

I love how Wind Waker hd I didn't need to stop the game to change items or look at the map, it was there at wiiu's second screen, and it's very sad to think they announced that same type of gameplay when they announced BoTW when it was a wiiu project, just like how the camera zoom from the sheikah slate was only on the gamepad. To be honest I loved the 2 screen idea of the DS and WiiU, it's just sad that nintendo abandoned it and it's probably patented so no one else can do something similar. I thought once to try to make a unity game where the player would use a bluetooth controller and a smartphone just like the wiiu gamepad, but since the palworld thing I'm afraid to even try.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

interesting - it feels like something like that is so broad you could do it...except i have no idea about copyright law ha

[@cking4869]

Nintendo has always been great at innovating in the most bizarre but amazing ways, but then staying stagnant for the most obvious improvements they could make. They'll go and create a revolutionary fuse mechanic that no game has ever done before, but then not even touch the menu required to use it which was already kinda out of date back in botw. Something that's basically already been perfected by other games. And then there's the way they handle internet too. Nintendo will never stop being an incomprehensible enigma to me

[@LittleBeanGreen]

Truly dizzying!

[@Alloveck]

I agree that the one giant horizontal bar only method of item selection in Tears of the Kingdom is awful, and there are definitely ways it could be done better. And I agree that there is too much item selection in Zeldas overall and I am super happy whenever an item gets a dedicated button like the Pegasus Boots rather than being manually equipped/selected. Or is just a totally passive upgrade. Less manually swapping which items are currently mapped to a button = more good, and I'd gladly take overall more complicated controls that give things dedicated buttons over simpler controls that have to constantly manually swap stuff. But, and this is a huge all caps level but, I ABSOLUTELY HATE REALTIME ITEM SELECTION. IN EVERY GAME THAT USES IT EVER. Seriously, no matter how good the game otherwise is, if it makes me select items (or equipment or spells etc) in real time, it's like walking around with a shard of glass in my shoe that can't be removed. (Lookin' at you, every From Soft game.) So while improvements are needed, realtime item selection is the most opposite of an improvement there can be under current control standards, and should never be done short of the game being able to read my mind and thereby skip selection menus entirely. A dedicated button combination for each item slot is acceptable as well, but that also would be basically skipping selection menus for that matter. So really, the point is that in-game time passing and moving a cursor around and/or scrolling through menus should never mix. EVER. Letting you pause to select stuff, even if the selection menus themselves could be sooooo much more efficient and direct, is really the only thing Zeldas always do right in that regard. For example, I'm playing Hyrule Warriors Definite Edition right now, and I like a lot about it, but I hate having to select the items in realtime, even like a hundred hours in, with their order fully memorized. Pretty much means I almost never use them except against giant bosses where they're totally necessary. I get selecting in realtime when you're playing co-op, but there is absolutely no reason you shouldn't be able to pause to switch items when you're playing single player. And that goes for all games. Optional paused item selection would be legally required for all games when playing singleplayer if it were up to me. I feel that strongly. With all that being said though, I do agree that INSTANTLY using items from within paused menus, for example healing items, can cause a balance issue. Though even then, paused item usage is still a much, much lesser evil than realtime item selection regardless, it's like choosing between being shot with a nerf gun and a real gun. But the good news is that you don't need horrible realtime item selection to solve the lesser problem of instant apple eating- Just have the game pause while you're in the item menu, but then play the flask drinking or eating animation in real, unpaused time once you've selected and chosen the healing item from the pause menu. That's the way to go if you ask me: Pause to navigate menus and select what you want to use, unpause and play the usage animation once you've made your selection. There's no reason that pausing for menus and usage animations can't coexist, which gets you the best of both worlds.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

Yeah I don't actually like picking items in real time. I think the Ocarina of Time/Majora's Mask way of doing things for the most part was pretty good - you had items you could pick in real time without having to resort to a menu.

[@Adventureruler]

Wait i didnt understand the "wrongly categorizing items" part. All boots belong in the boots column tho 🤔

[@LittleBeanGreen]

Yeah I don't mean that they aren't boots, but they are on a separate screen where they can't be equipped in real time (like the hookshot or bow etc.). Instead you have to go into the menu and 'take' them on and off.

[@AzumarillConGafasBv]

How are the older Zelda pause menus slow???, they're perfect and show everything the player needs in a screen

[@LittleBeanGreen]

It's less about the speed of the menus and more about inventory management. A quick menu doesn't matter when I have to access it every two seconds.

[@Cody-5501]

The legend of menus: breath of the bloat.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

botw in retrospect seems like the least worst offender after the last two installments

[@lordneeko]

For Echos of Wisdom, I would have welcomed a "favorites" menu so I could add my commonly used.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

The developers just came out and said they made that long string of echoes so that you would have to run through them and maybe find new ones you'd want to experiment with...while I understand that rationale, I still think it's dumb.

[@coreyfarmer7705]

Personally I like my zelda games to feel like zelda games. I like the menu letting me actually fucking pause the game. I like in menu healing, I like not having to worry about how many items I'm holding being realistic, I like woofing down forty seven gourmet dishes I spent hours farming and cooking so I can keep plonking arrows in slow mo at the monsters. I like when games break immersion and feel like games rather than boring non stop crushing debasement sometimes

[@LittleBeanGreen]

To be clear - I don't want there to be no pausing. As for the rest of it, I suppose to each their own, but I do think there is a balance that could be better struck between maintaining Zelda's current difficulty and also lessening the crutch of pausing. I don't think the only choices are 'too easy' or 'boring non stop crushing debasement.'

[@coreyfarmer7705]

@LittleBeanGreen That is fair. I didn't like the premise of the video, and projected some anger with the bigger gaming community onto it. The more level headed version of my comment is more along the lines of "I don't think this is a problem. I really like the flow of zelda menus. I'm tired of full immersion in games and I really like having a way to stop everything mid fight and take care of sudden issues with my children and pets. Taking out pause menus and turning everything real time will lock me out of the games I've loved for 30 years." And really that's the comment you deserved and I'm sorry I didn't give that one first. Thank you for your level headed response

[@LittleBeanGreen]

@@coreyfarmer7705 hey no problem - I didn't interpret your comment as angry, just as 'this person knows what they want from Zelda, and it's different from me.' Although, I seem to have not been clear generally, in that several people seem to think I want to exterminate instead of reduce pausing. I think pausing every time we have to fuse arrows, for example, is bonkers and if there is an item or powers you end up switching between often, it'd be nice to not have to go into a menu to do that. Having the ability to stop the action to take care of real world things is something for which I am definitely not advocating 😅

[@GunnerKitten]

It's amazing how much a scroll wheel somewhere on a controller would fix so many of these problems

[@LittleBeanGreen]

you're exactly right

[@Kruegernator123]

I didn't expect a mention of Indigo in this video. People are getting really excited for this ROM hack to release.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

it looks great!

[@prettyoriginalnameprettyor7506]

Crosscode has amazing dungeons and story, unlike tears of the kingdom

[@LittleBeanGreen]

I thought the dungeons were perfect.

[@crumble2000]

Yes and they really capture the combat-puzzle alternance of traditional Zelda games.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

I think the balance of puzzle to combat was so good. Plus how they let you test a power before giving it to you so they could ramp up the puzzles - genius.

[@cartersmith4081]

Zelda really loves introducing genre defining mechanics and then giving said mechanics the most clunky UI possible.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

classic zelda

[@specialnewb9821]

What I really want is to be able to swap Z targets like in souls. Z targeting has been driving me crazy for 20 years.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

yes absolutely!

[@wiiownsps3and360]

It’s so funny because this is an extreme version of one of the biggest issues in og ocarina of time. That they then fixed in the remakes. (Most of the Zelda remakes of the Wii U 3ds era fixed menuing) Now look at where we ended up 😂

[@LittleBeanGreen]

It's crazy how far they've come and how far they've fallen behind hahaha

[@rockonhero3611]

I have 5 dungeons in Echos of Wisdom and no motivation to experiment at all with echoes anymore. Finding one takes too long. Additionally the dungeon design was the most mixed in any zelda game. I had easy, good, terrible, mid and disappointing so far. So i felt the critique to be true.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

I thought the dungeons ended up being pretty mid. And I agree, there is definitely very little motivation (or reward) for experimenting with echoes.

[@ShadowWizard224]

My All Time Zelda Ranking 🛡️🙏 #1 Majora’s Mask #2 Twilight Princess #3 A Link Between Worlds #4 Ocarina of Time #5 Breath of the Wild #6 A Link To The Past #7 Minish Cap #8 Zelda 2: Adventure of Link #9 Link’s Awakening #10 Original Legend of Zelda #11 Skyward Sword #12 Tears of the Kingdom #13 Oracle of Seasons #14 Oracle of Ages #15 Phantom Hourglass #16 Wind Waker #17 Echoes of Wisdom #18 Four Swords Adventure #19 Spirit Tracks #20 Four Swords #21 Triforce Heroes

[@LittleBeanGreen]

the oracles so lowwwww

[@BusyMEOW]

☝😺 Yes! Menu scrolling is why I havn't picked up Echoes, I became burnt out from TOTK's menus. Imagine playing one of the Wild games with just your basic skills and no menu items..

[@Silarias]

I find the menu of EOW tedious as well, but it forced me to think through problems, and it's pretty minor compared to how enjoyable the rest of the game is! I hope you'll pick it up eventually.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

My experience with EoW was: early on there weren't that many echoes, so you could open up the full menu and see them all in a boxed grid; mid-game there were too many and most of the time you were just scrolling through menus and throwing things at the wall to see what stuck; late game you had a handful of really powerful things and that's all you used... But I still enjoyed it.

[@shaneuniverse4965]

I agree with the problem, but am strongly against the solutions. It's a whole bunch of complexity that reduced the flow of the games just as much as the problems they're trying to avoid.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

Maybe I did a poor job explaining it but it's not really that complicated...it's pushing two buttons at any time without stopping anything. It would be like pushing two buttons to jump and glide but instead it's selecting a power and using it.

[@ZedEdge]

What a flawless video. Clear, concise, respectful, constructive yet still open-minded. Great stuff!

[@LittleBeanGreen]

Appreciate the kind words - thanks for checking it out :)

[@TomMooreT2S]

We need the Wii U Gamepad back in some capacity for the “Switch 2…”

[@LittleBeanGreen]

I have this curious feeling you may be on to something.

[@elio7610]

It is not even that convenient without a third hand to tap on the screen.

[@TomMooreT2S]

@elio7610 Say that to the two weapons only trope in every FPS game you come across.

[@elio7610]

@@TomMooreT2S I don't see the connection, that is just a whole different thing.

[@TomMooreT2S]

@elio7610 I’m aware of that. But ever heard of the saying back in 03: “Unless you got three hands, you can only carry two weapons. [Beside your sidearm and grenades.]” And most just took all of that away! Now who says I can’t hold a 2nd screen gamepad with two hands in real life? Frankly, even FPS titles can benefit for weapon selection with the gamepad in mind.

[@QuillSoft89]

Being able to pause the game and heal at any time is pretty much the only reason I was able to beat breath of the wild and tears of the Kingdom. It's balanced because you have to farm for all of those materials.

[@micahbarrus8406]

You do not have to spend much time farming at all. You can get 5 hearty radishes and have 5 free full heals, no question asked. That's not balance.

[@TSPhoenix2]

Honestly question, do you actually enjoy face-tanking damage with healing items? I don't see why it wouldn't it just be better for enemies hit less hard.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

Do you think it would still be possible for you to beat it if you had to assign a set of meals to a button that you had to eat in real time?

[@gydgeza]

@@LittleBeanGreen if the game is also rebalanced so that a stray shot won't immediately cripple your health yes, but in a game where most basic creatures will two shot you, that sounds like it would be sadistic. We don't need zelda to turn into dark souls.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

@@gydgeza that may be true for the early game but as soon as you get any semblance of an armor upgrade, this trivializes most enemies. I still don't think strong enemies is more of an issue than pausing to heal and I think it can still work out where the difficulty isn't dark souls, but also not brainless.

[@thcookieh]

Wii U was so advanced to our time.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

we didn't deserve her

[@HALLLLP]

careful, you give nintendo ideas and we're in for a land of copy-right

[@LittleBeanGreen]

then I'll be turning the tables on em!

[@HALLLLP]

@@LittleBeanGreen you better

[@bluezaton]

I think pausing to swap weapons and instant healing are fine for these games. They are meant to be games you lay back and relax with, not meant to stress you out in fast paced combat and thinking.

[@elio7610]

Then what is the point of combat at all? They didn't add enemies for the sake of relaxation. I think you would have a point if you were talking about Animal Crossing but Zelda games have always had plenty of action combat where reaction time matters even if they are not meant to be super hard. Regardless of whether the game is supposed to be easy or hard, pause menu healing during live action is just bad design. Doing lots of stuff in menus can work for a turn based game where the flow of combat is supposed to be constantly pausing anyway but Zelda games are not turn based. It is not fun to need to go into a pause menu during live combat, pausing should only be necessary when you need to leave the game for a moment or want some time to think.

[@randychristensen1028]

I agree that the combat doesn't have to be fast paced but I would also argue that the constant pausing doesn't work as well in the newer Zelda games. The classic games had all of your items on one screen, making it super easy to see them all right there and quickly map it to a button. These new games have such a bloated menu that you are guaranteed to scroll through a list to find what you need almost every time. It just wastes more of my time every time I pause the game, which still ends up being a lot

[@LittleBeanGreen]

I disagree that these are games you are meant to 'lay back and relax with.' Zelda is about adventure. That could mean finding a cave with a frog in it or fighting a camp of enemies. But if I want to feel like I'm immersed in the game, regardless of whether it's hectic or easy-going, I don't want to be shuffling through menus. It's less about difficulty and more about immersion.

[@bluezaton]

@@LittleBeanGreen To me, Zelda is about exploring with moments of action

[@bluezaton]

@@elio7610 I see more moments of walking, running, swimming and climbing than fighting. I guess it depends how a person plays it. Combat is there, but a player isn't forced into it. What I mean laid back is that you choose when to do most things. No time limit or urgency in defeating enemies.

[@edwardperkins1225]

Don't worry the next Zelda will take one of your suggestions and make you scroll through a menu of 504 items in real time. The strategy is to never select a new item in combat. 😂

[@LittleBeanGreen]

oh god...

[@Jarttis]

I kinda liked using the menu in BOTW, call me crazy ig.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

it's been awhile since I've played that came so I can't speak too decisively about my feelings on it....but there were definitely waaaaaaaaaay to many things to collect and organize - something totk doubled down on

[@AlejandroScared]

I love the comparisong to traffic it was so good 😂

[@LittleBeanGreen]

well some times it is!

[@MemoriesLP]

I'm sorry but this video is kinda like a mess Why is it bad to give too many options? If a game wants to give more options than it needs to, so some players can be extra creative, then why is it a bad thing? Also, what is the vision and intent behind BoTW and ToTK? Do they want every single player to have to worry when to heal? I've beaten Dark Souls 3, Bloodborne and Elden Ring, and I would have dies multiple times in BoTW if I was vulnerable while healing. Is BoTW supposed to be a demanding game to play in that sense? Sure I would like that change, but I don't think it would be a good change for BoTW. I think it is part of the game to make food, get materials to upgrade stuff... So opening the menu, and being able to choose which speed buff to chose is fine by me. If it is freezing, I also think its fine to be able to select which of the 5 meals I have for cold resistance without the time passing as I die of cold. At the end of the day, it comes down to the vision the developers had behind the game. If they don't want to lean that much to action with so much precise and highly demanding combat skills, then they won't do that, and they are not wrong. I played Final Fantasy XV and took me more than 1000 hours to really understand what the devs meant by "the game was balanced". You can easily spend more than 100 hours in the base game version of that game doing all end game challenges. You can spam potions with no penalty in that game... Many people, including myself, would spend 30 elixirs and many other healing potions in a single fight. Now imagine the game was harder, imagine you could not carry 99 potions but 20 or 30, or you had to use healing at the correct time... that game would be just too dificult, and god knows how many hours it would take to complete the end game content. The game is actually hard, not easy. If you have to use 40 potions in a fight, it was not easy, but you still succeded with struggle. That was the balance they wanted to achieve: a hard game with no game over. You never receive a game over, but you constantly use most of your resources, you fail to fight properly, enemies overwhelm you...

[@LittleBeanGreen]

Do you feel the same about TotK and EoW's menus?

[@LunarEclipse_Yt]

As a game developer, I quite like that idea

[@LittleBeanGreen]

which one's that?

[@Jam77229]

Use a radial menu like in Monster Hunter. It works wonders and is fully customizable

[@LittleBeanGreen]

Twilight Princess used to have this and there is something like this in TotK, but because there are so many options, you spend so much time in the menu.

[@Jam77229]

@@LittleBeanGreen There are far more items in monster hunter and you can craft items using the radial menu as well. A radial menu would have sped of the menuing in BotK and TotK drastically if implemented correctly. The radial menu in Twilight Princess is very limited compared to the ones in Monster Hunter World for instance

[@rocky_kitten]

i love terrarias inventory lolz and quick healing in the real time makes fighting bosses so much more fun

[@LittleBeanGreen]

some times I freak out and can't find my potions hahahah

[@rocky_kitten]

@LittleBeanGreen it can be binded to a button ;>

[@Micchi-]

I think radial menu from monster hunter world could work in zelda games

[@LittleBeanGreen]

seems to be something a lot of people agree on....and also something that was in Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword and then inconceivably dropped.

[@PsychoIncarnate666]

Maybe the quick menu should only have favorites

[@LittleBeanGreen]

And a limited number

[@DuskMindAbyss]

Here is the thing: the more open the games, the more vapid, useless item baggage we will get to give the illusion of choice and openness. The more trash we can get in the modern empty worlds, the worse this problem will be. Better UI like an item wheel or favorite list will only go so far, but the more stupid trash we can get in game, the worse this problem will be. Thank you for making me hate open air even more now, just goes to show zelda lost its magic, and details like this are why.

[@LittleBeanGreen]

Nintendo is usually full of surprises - hopefully, when it comes to Zelda's open worlds, they have one more.

[@KevZ7.]

The thing is, open-world is the logical continuation for Zelda. Exploration is in its foundations, and honestly, BOTW/TOTK were the first Zelda games since the 2D Zeldas to nail that aspect (it's especially clear when you see BOTW/TOTK map is made like 2D Zelda, with the whole world fitting into a square/rectangle and not something with a central place and corridors for each "region" to try to emulate a feeling of exploration that is actually artificial) You can do open-world in various ways too and Nintendo will definitely demonstrate that with the next 3D Zelda game

[@springtrap_66pg66]

i think you're a narcissist thinking YOU can fix a perceived """issue""" from a game series that has been around for more than 30 years. Context is crucial. You're not always fighting in Zelda, you have very much significant downtime so there's no reason to develop whatever issue you have with the inventory/pausing whatever. Then you also shill your own fangame at the end. That was pretty funny xD GL

[@LittleBeanGreen]

my plot to envelope the zelda franchise in a shroud of my image is only just taking form.