The Big Catch & its Tacklebox have Lured me in

 I want this blog to be a pleasant, positive place where I can also be harshly critical of things. My last two blog posts have been very critical, so I feel like making something incredibly upbeat, and a little bit timely, too! After all, where's the contrast in only making negatively-slanted blogposts? I'm a fully rounded human. I'm going to talk about The Big Catch for a bit. I don't expect this to be a particularly long blog post, but that is also good contrast with the rest of these tall, tall, text towers.

"Tall towers, you say?"

I am lucky and blessed enough to have backed The Big Catch back in 2022. The game's graphical style, music, presentation, and hypothetical gameplay shown in the trailer sold me on it immediately. I had little reservation about backing it at the tier that got you a demo early. Then known as "The Toybox". Little else happened on my end of this bargain until the glorious summer of 2024 where said demo released... To literally everyone. This was a controversial move at the time, but really smart. Because otherwise right now I'd be talking about how fun it is to live in CuthbertLand and ride all the cool rides that you can't go on because you didn't back the game.

After all, I still got to play it.

Considering the developers are currently showing the game off at Pax East (AT TIME OF TYPING), this is the perfect time for YOU, the reader, to play the demo and if you enjoy it you won't have to wait a crazy amount of time to experience the full game. I love this god damn demo. You may also wonder why you should even bother with the demo if the game's coming out soon. With most demos, they'll just let you play about 5-10% of the game and cut you off before it gets really good. The Tacklebox demo has entirely unique levels and structures, and hell, you don't even play as the main game's protagonist. 

I can't believe the game actually looks like this. It makes me so damn happy. Just LOOK at it. It's like a magazine screenshot for an unreleased title.

Beneath sunny orange mornings and pale blue evenings, you'll be collecting a bunch of fish. 26 fish, to be exact. There's also almost 700 coins to find. But it's not collectables that makes something good. The game's gameplay is the only reason that 100%ing this demo was one of my favourite game experiences of 2024.

Obviously, from this point onwards, my writing is kind of like spoilers for the demo. I consider discovering the hostile and evil world of The Tacklebox to be one of its greatest assets. Considering it's entirely free to download. Why are you still reading this? Go download the thing already! Okay, I see. You've already played it, and didn't enjoy it as much as I did, or you want to know more about it before you spend your hard-earned time on something.

Okay, so the primary thing I really dig about this game is how brutal it is. I think it will surprise people considering they referred to the game as being "expressive", which it is, but not in the way people expect from a 3D Platformer. You hear "expressive" and your mind conjures up the image of Mario in Mario Odyssey crossing any wall he feels like by throwing and bouncing off of his cap. Which I do agree, is a rather fun style of play. I like it. 

The Big Catch does NOT play like that. It's expressive because you have a lot of movement options and methods of approach, but the game still really wants you to nail the platforming before you're allowed to pull any fancy tricks. You are given a lot of tools that give your little reptile/bird/rabbit/creature a lot of length in jumps, but few that give significant height. Most of your height is gained via the environment around you. Wallrunning/jumping, swinging, spinjump-groundpounding into angled slopes, etc.

Eventually, you will fall. When you lose minutes of progress in a single failed jump; Will you shut off the game or focus up for your next attempt?

That's the thing. The game's actually a game about freerunning and parkour more than traditional platforming. It aligns it closer to Mario 64 than Odyssey. But the actual tone of the game is something else. Straight-faced and mysterious. The incredibly weird world of the game is played completely straight. No tongue in cheek "Why are we looking for FISH in a DESERT?" type dialogue. You are here to earn your damn scales. 

It's quite refreshing to me, because I swear to god most of the indie 3d platforming revival have been a bunch of quippy jokers. I don't hate quippy jokers, because at the end of the day I am also a quippy joker, but just because A Hat In Time did it, doesn't mean everyone had to. Not to say the full game is gonna be entirely the world's most serious game ever, because I reckon it'll probably have more writing than this, but the currently established tone is very much up my alley.

The scale of this world is beautiful and intimidating. You're gonna have to climb those for fish, soon.

I mean geez, I spent 12 hours on my first 100% playthrough. I've played it through a few times since. A couple of all fish playthroughs. Tacklebox has eaten more time than many, many games I actually bought with real money. But, with the full game (seemingly) on its way later this year, I've been thinking about how similar to the demo the game is actually gonna be.

This might be complete speculation, but I feel like the Tacklebox's towers (some of them are really, really, hard) were designed to test the limits of what new players would find enjoyable. Each area tests something slightly different about the game, hailing to the roots of the demo as a backer exclusive tech demo thing. Not dissimilar to what we used to get at E3 back in the day.

I know for a fact they used the Tacklebox as a way to test out performance, and seemingly patched optimizations in to both it and what will become the main game simultaneously. I actually didn't notice this, but the game ran super badly at launch. Hell, it struggled on Steam Deck. Doesn't anymore. But that's neither here nor there. I'm not fuckin Digital Foundry. I don't care about framerates. I'm wondering what pieces of the demo's design are gonna end up in the final game.

One of the rare times the fish is found in water. I like how rarely this game is actually about fishing.

A lot of people complained about the game's high difficulty, but truth be told, most of the game's areas aren't actually that hard. The thing is, a lot of people are instinctively going to head directly towards the tallest structures they can see, and the issue is the game never lies about how large a thing is. Along the way, they likely pass by many smaller structures that'd actually give them an adequate place to practice. Is this the game's fault, or the player's fault.

I reckon the final game's gonna give you a map, and some character will likely recommend a good starting point after the tutorial. I'm hoping for a vague, Shadow of the Colossus-type map. The lack of fast travel (Something the full game will definitely have) makes the exploration of the Tacklebox have a similar feel. You want to explore a place again? You have to go there. I like that for the size the Tacklebox has, but I reckon the full game's scale will make that unwieldy and annoying...

For most people. I probably won't use it.

The island where a central enemy bombards you the whole time you're on it, so you have to move incredibly quickly or die is probably my favourite area. It's quite tucked away, so you might miss it!

I hope the final game still has an abundance of evil towers to climb. I'd be happy enough if the full game is exactly like tacklebox with 3x the number of locales. I hope the game keeps the mysterious vibe. See, I have a lot of hope. I'll probably be overjoyed to see any new part of this game. Look at Yo Noid 2.

Hell, just look at how good the damn game PLAYS. This game just lets you fucking MOVE. The backflip, wallrun and spinjump are like utter crack cocaine to the system. Surfing the sands between locales is swift and satisfying. You can kinda just book it in and out of anywhere as you please, which gives the game a lot of energy. Finding my own skips and ways around the landmarks of the map has been a joy.

It's also interesting that this game is so Zelda-y. It's a 3D platformer game with a lot of tonal hallmarks of the Zelda series. The most obvious is the Wind Waker/Spirit Tracks sounding sand surfing music. It's a very on-the-nose homage saved by the fact it's genuinely so pleasant in it's own right. I cannot lie; first time I played the demo and it kicked in, I felt goosebumps. It was the moment I knew for sure it was going to be a memorable experience, so I suppose it has some sentimental value already. I'm a sucker for nostalgia. Especially 2024 nostalgia.

No loading screens, just LOD models.

If you come away from this article, try the demo and hate it. Fair enough. Not all of my friends actually gelled with it that much. Some people found the game too loose for the precise platforming. Some people didn't like how punishing it felt to fall. Some found some of the music too repetitive for areas you spend a long time in. Some just didn't find the main character's appearance appealing. Interestingly, some of their critiques I agree with.

In the game's tutorial, there's a part where you have to nail a relatively precise wallrun twice in a row. You have to do this in order to get out of the starting area. I spent a not-insignificant amount of time falling down, failing, and I was getting annoyed. I think about the fact I could've shut the game off in anger at any moment. Writing off The Big Catch as a waste of my kickstarter money. But I didn't. I pushed through, nailed the wallruns (a valuable skill in the literal whole entire rest of the game), and went on to enjoy the rest of the game's world.

Yeah, I got a little annoyed when I fell, but I quickly realised that each time I got back up it took me less and less time. Because I didn't quit, falling being a knife's edge became part of the appeal. Risky jumps became fun jumps. Then, just today, as I finish writing this...

I have no more space to play. On and off, across the last 10 months, I returned, did a few 26 fish runs, but I refused to delete save files that were 100%ed. I want to go back, but it only feels right to leave the game here, with 30 whole hours of total playtime. That's my original save file on the left. I'll leave the game like this and wait patiently for the full thing to release.

I think it's about time somebody else played this damn game, anyway. You up?

The Zelda Series Needs to go Back to go Forward - A Far Less Adaptable Formula

The Legend of Zelda is my favourite video game series of all time. Not exactly a controversial or particularly "out there" choice, I know. But most of my favourite videogames are standalone games, specific entries from a series, or don't have enough titles to be considered a series. But what sort of Zelda fan am I? If you've been on the internet long enough, you'll know there are many different types of Zelda fans! You can't just put em all into one box.

This art is so cool. Putting this here so that this is the embed thumbnail. 

Some of us love the 2D games to death, some think the series died at Twilight Princess. Some really like the Zelda Timeline and think it's the coolest thing since sliced moblin. Good thing that a modern man like myself is easily able to compress a lot of opinions into one convenient image. Introducing: The Tier List! 

Yeah, I'm a "Majora's Mask" type fan. I'm a bit of a "Zelda Boomer" because I don't tend to like the remakes/remasters. Especially not MM3D & WWHD. But that's a topic for a different blog post. (They make the game worse and/or uglier!)

So, yes. I like the Zelda series both old and new. So what's the deal with "formulas" here? No game series really starts out with a formula. The first two Zelda games march to the beat of their own drum, but you explore an overworld, and get items that allow you to explore more of the world. Link to the Past ends up setting the first "Zelda Formula" in place, by having a more involved story, and a slightly more linear structure. Interestingly, Link's awakening makes the dungeon structure even more linear, and the story is the most involved story yet. Still, side activities in the open world gradually reveal themselves to the player the more progress has been made, similar to Link to the Past.

Then, the series goes 3D for the first time. The fifth* Zelda game! It continues to have a heavily involved story, going for a much grander and less cerebral tone than Link's Awakening, but opening up the dungeon order a little. At various points in the game, the next dungeon you do can be whichever you happen to stumble into, which feels suitably adventurous and dynamic. Not like Navi's gonna let you forget what the developer intended next dungeon is, though.

Some people call Navi hate forced, and to an extent, I can see what they mean, but is is annoying when she tells you about something you were already doing.

For the next 19 years, that's basically what A Zelda Game was like. Of course, each has its own individual permutations, but "What OoT and LttP Did" really stuck. Zelda games were a consistent mix of action, adventure, puzzles, and combat. One of the things that sticks out to me about the series is how it doesn't really excel at the stuff it does, but is more of a jack of all trades. You can find better action, better stories (usually), and better puzzles in other games. But the way the series manages to tie all these gameplay ideas together into one clear adventure is so effortless that it's easy to forget how difficult it is to design!

But that's why the Zelda series is most associated with "Adventure". That's the primary feeling and function for everything else. After the release of Skyward Sword, which, I'm going to be honest, barely feels like an adventure because the overworld is all corridor, seems like Nintendo wanted to reexamine what Zelda games were really doing. They'd not done anything seriously different in a while, and the Wii U still hadn't had its own real Zelda game. Time was running out.

Somebody! Anybody!! Goddess of Time, help us please! We need more time!

Long story short, after a delay from 2015 to 2016, and then another delay to 2017, we were blessed (or cursed!) with Breath of the Wild. The most popular Zelda game of all time. No items, micro-dungeons spread across the map, physics based gameplay systems, the entire world is open to you from the very start. Interestingly, they claimed the concept was a return to Zelda 1's gameplay structure, but I don't think that's even close to accurate. Zelda 1 actually stops you from going to certain places if you don't have the right items.

Breath of the Wild is a new formula entirely, don't let that little NES thing fool you. Chopping down trees? Not something that happened in Zelda 1. What even was that thing, anyway? When will someone leak it? 

Breath of the Wild's main tie back to previous Zelda games is its emphasis on adventure. That, again, is it's strongest point. Exploration and experimentation. Of course, it wasn't long until they added the Motorbike to the game. Probably one of the most fun things in the entire game. I love the motorbike. One of the things I liked most about the game was how you could combine its systems together to solve problems in bonkers ways. 

Wasn't long before a sequel was announced. One of the few times in the Zelda series where they actually create a direct sequel with the same art style. In BotW tradition, the game was delayed multiple times until 2023 where it finally released. It's a very polarizing game. It's designed around a very specific way of playing, my way of playing. So I adored my time with the game.

Seriously. Tears of the Kingdom is some of the most fun I've had with any video game. A twisted, science experiment adventure, allowing me to fuck around with every single element of the game's engine. Creating whatever I wanted, using as many zonai parts as I could. Fusing and combining the weirdest stuff possible. It was a dream come true. I could truly do anything I wanted. A sorta-structured-sorta-not-magical-techno-swordsman-adventure. I adored it.

Of course, my enjoyment of the game was entirely pure. By the way... Have you met my husband?

But of course, I have to look at the game outside of its vacuum. It was not released as a standalone title, it's a sequel to Breath of the Wild, but it doesn't care about the story of that game in the slightest. It seems entirely uninterested in what sequels normally offer, instead doing the fresh start type thing typical of other Zelda titles.

It's even further away from what the series is. It's batshit insane. It's respectable that it's one of the best functioning physics sandboxes ever coded. They leveraged the opportunity to use Breath of the Wild to create a truly unique experience. But they also didn't want to talk about Breath of the Wild at all. The game forgets its meant to be a sequel an awful lot. Almost as much as it forgets to be a Zelda game. A truly once in a lifetime game.

You see, that's the problem. Once.

I don't want another game like Tears of the Kingdom. I feel like we have stretched how sandboxy you can make an adventure like this before it all becomes meaningless. The only further step you can take is to allow the player to alter the game's code, and at that point the game is even more "as only as fun as you make it". If you want to play a game that's like that, Double Fine's "Hack 'N' Slash" exists. 

It's not very good. Interestingly, it's also a Zelda parody. Did they know?

Tears of the Kingdom has better dungeons than Breath of the Wild, but they're not exactly masterpieces. The dungeons of OoT, Wind Waker, Etc have generally been more compelling to me. The limits you have as a player create more interesting puzzles. You are too free to do whatever you want in TotK. You can skip all the dungeons in the game and go straight for the final boss. Combining ascend, a box, and recall gives you the ability to bypass most heights and ledges in the whole game.

The issues with a game with no limits and no intended order is that it's hard to craft a a good story around that. You have to make a story that truly bends to the player's will. Very hard to craft an epic tale that can meander like that. Nearly impossible. But Nintendo is not committed enough, and just uses the linear story structure anyway. TotK takes so many risks, and so few at the same time.

With all this, it's obvious that the next Zelda game wasn't going to be what we expected at all. Honestly, the fact the final Switch 1 Zelda wasn't TotK is still pretty wild to me.

Echoes of Wisdom released in 2024 to a polite applause. But the choices it decided to make are very interesting to me. It has pieces of heart, linear dungeon order, items in the dungeons. It's far from the best that the series has to offer, but it represents something important. They went back. Less freedom, more linearity. It's not perfect, though. You can use a combination of Water, Beds, and Guay to solve basically the entire game.

"Hey guys! It's me, Guay. Cuthbert's Favourite Zelda enemy. Only appeared in OoT & MM, TP (with a crusty disgusting design), and Skyward Sword (with a bad design) until a truly magical re-appearance in Echoes of Wisdom, where my amazing flight ability allowed Cuthbert to skip many of the game's trials, tribulations, and puzzles. Caw!"

There really appears to be an attempt to marry the old Zelda fundamentals with the new, Create YOUR solution gameplay. Was it successful? Kinda. I don't think it was a particularly well received game but I enjoyed it. It's just interesting to me that the first game they made after Tears of the Kingdom is a game that retreats back to old elements. If I had to guess, Nintendo attempted to design a game more open and free than TotK, but ran into the brickwall of that being impossible.

This is where the inevitable Switch 2 Zelda is so interesting to me. Of course I'm sad that it is inevitably going to cost 90USD, but Mario Kart fans have dug everyone else's grave and I don't wish to derail this post into pricing concerns. We could be getting a game far closer to OoT, or we could end up with Breath of the Wild 3. 

If it's the former, I think the series is saved. The game is going to sell well regardless of what they do, so they'll take the lesson of whatever they put out as "What they should do from now on". This also means that Breath of the Wild 3 could release and, even as a fan of the gameplay format, I will not be interested in anything remotely like that. I want a NEW artstyle. A NEW gameplay style. I know Nintendo's thing is meant to be innovation, but sometimes their "innovations" are really not super innovative.

Like, the worst part of Echoes of Wisdom are the Echoes themselves. They're not as engaging or as fun as Dampe's creations or activating the sword mode. They're also not as interesting as it's very hard to combine them, and you're usually best served by just doing what works. Unlike making crazy contraptions in TotK, it just isn't as dynamic. And, Unlike the OoT style of game, it doesn't make you use your brain.

But I don't just want them to make exactly what they made before. There is no more damaging adage to video games than "If it ain't broke... Don't fix it!" This is something that holds best for functional things like screwdrivers and cupboards. Not video games. There's a lot of value in games feeling different. If you don't like Tears of the Kingdom, it's likely because it's too similar to Breath of the Wild. Aonuma said that Breath of the Wild was the series standard going forward, like what Ocarina of Time was. 

In retrospect, the 25th Anniversary feels a bit like a goodbye.

Now, maybe I'm just unimaginative. But I feel able to imagine new games in the Ocarina of Time format. I can picture new items, new dungeon themes. I can picture where I would personally take a game afterwards from Skyward Sword's release. I can't imagine making something interesting in the Breath of the Wild format after Tears of the Kingdom. Like, what? Do you want a game about digging for dungeons underground with Minecraft-style digging? Is that how sandbox you want to go? Seems that Donkey Kong already stole that thunder. Nothing I can think of is as interesting to me as something more linear.

In a way, it's basically time for a new formula already. If they don't want to go back to OoT, that's fine. (It's not. I'll miss that type of game!) But we need a worthwhile replacement. Mario's here doing a great job innovating on what people loved about Mario 64. Never feels like any new Mario thing treads on the toes of something that came before it. I love 64 the most, but Sunshine and Odyssey are also superb. I don't think the Zelda team needs to fear losing the novel aspects of the series.

This game will probably be good. But will more freedom make a platformer more fun? Is maximum freedom actually fun?

If a game doesn't present any friction to a player; A faultless game that exists entirely as a toy to be messed with. What is the point of the game design part? I love making my own fun with a game, but I need some collaboration from the game's side, too! Imagine a Dungeons & Dragons dungeon master who just let you do whatever you felt like, even to the logical extreme. Just lets you pass any gap, any crevasse, any combat encounter at your will. That's what the Zelda series could become. Does anyone actually want to play a game like that?

Or, are people going to enjoy a game that hands them puzzles they can't cheese, unlocking new items and ways to interact with enemies/the world across the whole playthrough. A story that progresses the way the developers intend instead of requiring you to get lucky with the order in which you locate story pieces. A game that encourages the player to enjoy the world they're playing in. To care about the characters along the way. Give people a truly unforgettable experience. Maybe even go harder on the combat. I don't know, I'm not Nintendo.

And for FUCKS sake, man. Don't have the characters ask "Demon King? Secret Stones?" 4 times in a row. 

demise? amber relics?