that doctor is not one of The Last of Us now

I finished The Last of Us, which I really enjoyed but was a fairly stressful experience. And all I got out of it was two (two??) trophies, and I think I may have shot an unarmed doctor in the face.

I did like the game a lot, mostly the characters and story, and the setting (ruined cities and some nature) was fun. The action and violence were not super my thing, but it was cool. The level design felt pretty contrived.

I've been playing a lot of games about teenage girls lately. I have no idea what that's about. It's also a little weird that I seem to relate more to them than to boys or, specifically, the typical big burly man characters.

My favorite part of the game was a short section playing as the girl in a natury area.

replies to a friend re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Yeah, I really obsessed over Breath of the Wild, too. I looked, and it says I played it for like 175 hours or something. And I didn't even do any of the weird challenges (stressful) or much (any?) of the DLC. I didn't finish the shrines. I did do most of the actual game, though (90% or more).

So, given the vast time commitment, I obviously liked it, and I'd love another. That said, I think it had some design holes (again, maintaining it's still an excellent game).

(and yes, modern games have far too many buttons--I sometimes panic and oscillate between pressing no buttons at all, or pressing ALL the buttons)

I noticed early on that I was exploring just for the joy of it. That's a good thing. I marveled that they were able to get me to journey around and look behind crevices simply to see what was there, no gameplay reward. I often found absolutely nothing.

But, at some point, that wears a little thin. You need a gameplay hook to motivate you. They provided this, to some extent, but it was often just a chest containing crafting stuff I'd seen a hundred times or the same enemies I'd seen a hundred times. Some of the gameplay hooks wore thin, and others became a little obsessive and rote (I MUST GET TO THAT TOWER--and ended up ignoring much along the way). You don't ever want the player to say, "Why am I doing something I don't care about?"

And finally, it did not feel like a Zelda game. It was sort of billed as going back to series roots, but it did not do that to my way of thinking. It became kind of a different, new thing, a crazy open-world fantasy game with a Zelda skin. I was looking forward to playing an amazing re-imagining of the original Zelda, descending into those cleverly hidden labyrinths, but nope. They did not exist, and the shrines became as repetitive and unmotivating as everything else.

But, I bet I got a solid 100 hours (at least) of pure joy. The other 75 hours may have been some of "I've done this before and am sick of it" or "ALSKJAFSLJK@## why can't I block the stupid lion horse!"

I wonder where they will go now. Will they make a new Zelda game, or will they make a new Breath of the Wild game? Or will they finally combine the two and go back to the original Zelda's roots? I don't even know which I want now. I think a new Breath of the Wild could be amazing if they refined some of what I complained about above; I still think a re-imagining of the original Legend of Zelda could also be amazing.

I'd perhaps like one of each, please.