Zelda: Breath of the Wild [WU,NX]


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omg! thats what i liked from open world game that keeps getting NERFED in destiny!

if i have a wii u or NX, omg! zelda. You have changed a lot from the canned Skyward Sword (the best zzeda i ever played, the other zelda too boring :( )
 
I finished BotW yesterday. It is the most casual, most MMO-like, most ambivalent Zelda so far.

It's a nice open world sandbox with a mediocre game on top.

The story is rather meh, the NPCs either underused or forgettable. The balancing is bad. Of the 120 shrine dungeons (I did them all), only about 15 are good and a bit challenging, most of the (puzzle) shrines can (literally!) be done in 2-4 minutes.

Of the divine beast dungeons only the Divine Beast Vah Naboris (Gerudo) is great. The Goron and the Rito beast are especially easy and underwhelming, they can be done in under 20 minutes each, including bosses and all chests.

Speaking of bosses, all major bosses combined (divine beasts and Hyrule Castle) I died just a single time. Once you upped the armor a bit and have the right materials, cooking & fairies make you pretty much undieable (with Lynel fights maybe the exception). I think i didn't die at all the last 30 hours of playing.

Hyrule Castle was a complete letdown for me. It nothing like the dungeons from previous Zelda games, where you needed skill and some wit to progress. Actually I accidentally stumbled into the final fight without ever setting foot inside the castle before while searching for a memory. I decided to try fight Ganon for a while and was a bit surprised because had him almost down in no time and then decided to load an earlier save in order to finish all shrines first.

The english voice acting also stands out a bit on the negative side. Why did they use only 7 voice actors? Every other language uses at least almost twice a much. It's really distracting that Zelda and Mipha have the same voice.

What bothers me about the game is, that it establishes a lot of game mechanics but they are barely used for anything important.

I also wonder why BotW is not compared the "Ubisoft formula" games a lot more:
Climbing towers to reveal map? Check!
Randomly placed outposts with respawning enemies? Check!
Collectibles anywhere? Check!
Breaking weapons? Check! (FC2)
Weak main story? Check!
Filler sidequests? Check!

Let's drop the Zelda nostalgia glasses for a bit. I would say Nintendo has really out-Ubisoft-ed Ubisoft here! Yet Ubisoft is criticized while Nintendo is praised for exactly the same things!

That said, the game has it's moments. My favorite moment was when I bought the Lizalfos Mask mask, equipped it and then walked up to the first Lizalfos. Hilarious! Some of the cut scenes are really great. It's fun to figure out the game mechanics.

I would give it a 7/10.
 
I agree with all N00b's points except the final score. I wouldn't go as low as 7. 8/10 would be more appropriate.
I mostly enjoy travelling fin Z:BotWe and discovering new places. Rest of the game is a bit "been there done that".
I'm not sure why I like exploring in this game more than I do in for example Horizon or FFXV, even thoug those games have so much better graphics and richer landscapes.
Maybe tit's just that, Breath of the Wild is not a constant sensory overload but a more relaxing stroll. It makes me feel like old days when what drove me forwards in games was to see what the next level would look and sound like.
It definitely plays heavily on nostalgia, and that's not necessarily a bad thing (for an old gamer like myself).
 
An article said that Zelda BotW was the best Ubisoft game from the last ten years, putting strong emphasis on the fact it's reusing Ubisoft open world formula but best it... ^^
 
From your criticism it sounded like you meant to give it 3/10.
Consider my criticism a diff to all the hype reviews out there. They would like to make you think BotW is the one game to rule them all, but it's not IMHO.

BTW when I compare BotW to "Ubisoft formula" games that does not mean i don't like Ubisoft games. I think they are being criticized too much and many times unfairly so. For instance I really love the Far Cry series, despite some flaws, and especially Far Cry 2, which was really innovative and creative and had a great, serious story.

BotW is a fun game that you can easily sink of hours into. But it's also a bit shallow. The star of the game is not the game itself, it's the open world sandbox. I wonder what kind of game BotW would have been if they payed more attention to the game on top of the sandbox.
 
From your criticism it sounded like you meant to give it 3/10.
I thought it was obviously positioned as a counter to the 'flawless best game in history' opinions out there. We already know what's good with the game and N00b was presenting the unspoken flip-side.
 
I'm getting the vibe here that I am not the only one who's not entirely happy with BotW.

Let's play the "what-would-you-change-if-you-were-in-charge" game. I'll start.

If I was in charge of the next Zelda game I would:
  • Put the runes (power, skills,...) in proper dungeons
  • Make some areas accessible only when player has proper rune
  • Change the combat system to be a bit more like Dark Souls or even old Zeldas
  • Take a long, hard look at Dragons Dogma: Dark Arisen for balancing
  • Have less NPCs, but add more personality to NPCs, maybe add companions for certain areas, dungeons
  • Add a limit how much potions you can drink in a given window of time. If you drink more than the max, you would get intoxicated or even poisoned
  • Add an animation when changing armor, so you cannot simple change armor in combat and in flight.
  • Make the main story affect the world certain ways (apart from NPCs offering new quests)
  • Maybe add an end-game area from where you cannot return to the main world
  • Drop registering and boarding horses. Just whistle to summon Epona!
What would you guys do?
 
Consider my criticism a diff to all the hype reviews out there. They would like to make you think BotW is the one game to rule them all, but it's not IMHO.

BTW when I compare BotW to "Ubisoft formula" games that does not mean i don't like Ubisoft games. I think they are being criticized too much and many times unfairly so. For instance I really love the Far Cry series, despite some flaws, and especially Far Cry 2, which was really innovative and creative and had a great, serious story.

BotW is a fun game that you can easily sink of hours into. But it's also a bit shallow. The star of the game is not the game itself, it's the open world sandbox. I wonder what kind of game BotW would have been if they payed more attention to the game on top of the sandbox.

I'm a big Far Cry 2 fan as well. Mostly. That game predates the Ubisoft formula, though. I'd say the Ubisoft formula which FC3 established and popularized was actually a direct result of people shitting on FC2 due to its refusal to play nice. It was a game that was heavily criticized, but for entirely different reasons. FC2 could be antagonistic as fuck and had just a single type of collectible which was actually useful. It didn't have towers, and it wasn't eager to elevate the player to a godlike status early on. It also forced you to travel over long distances, and it didn't even have your typical map screen. Much less one with a million blinking dots on it. In terms of design, particularly when it comes to its minimalist UI, it was more Alien Isolation than Far Cry. The open world and the perspective were just about the only things it had in common with the later entries in the series.
 
I'm a big Far Cry 2 fan as well. Mostly. That game predates the Ubisoft formula, though. I'd say the Ubisoft formula which FC3 established and popularized was actually a direct result of people shitting on FC2 due to its refusal to play nice.

Not coincidentally, the biggest criticism of BoTW is the same criticism of FC2: the speed with which weapons will deteriorate. There is nothing wrong with this gameplay mechanic when it's well balanced (Fallout 3, Minecraft) but the speed which which weapons in BoTW/FC2 can go from new to broken is simply absurd. There are more sophisticated and interesting ways to make a game interesting than: you know that weapon you picked up 1 minute ago? It's now broken. Not in a game that is tens of hours long, where combat is a fundamental mechanic and inventory space is limited.

Far Cry 2 was also criticised for rate at which enemies at checkpoints would respawn, which was so rapid that enemies at a single checkpoint could respawn while you were clearing it out. At least BoTW limits this to the blood moon event.
 
I finished BotW yesterday. It is the most casual, most MMO-like, most ambivalent Zelda so far.

It's a nice open world sandbox with a mediocre game on top.

The story is rather meh, the NPCs either underused or forgettable. The balancing is bad. Of the 120 shrine dungeons (I did them all), only about 15 are good and a bit challenging, most of the (puzzle) shrines can (literally!) be done in 2-4 minutes.

Of the divine beast dungeons only the Divine Beast Vah Naboris (Gerudo) is great. The Goron and the Rito beast are especially easy and underwhelming, they can be done in under 20 minutes each, including bosses and all chests.

Speaking of bosses, all major bosses combined (divine beasts and Hyrule Castle) I died just a single time. Once you upped the armor a bit and have the right materials, cooking & fairies make you pretty much undieable (with Lynel fights maybe the exception). I think i didn't die at all the last 30 hours of playing.

Hyrule Castle was a complete letdown for me. It nothing like the dungeons from previous Zelda games, where you needed skill and some wit to progress. Actually I accidentally stumbled into the final fight without ever setting foot inside the castle before while searching for a memory. I decided to try fight Ganon for a while and was a bit surprised because had him almost down in no time and then decided to load an earlier save in order to finish all shrines first.

The english voice acting also stands out a bit on the negative side. Why did they use only 7 voice actors? Every other language uses at least almost twice a much. It's really distracting that Zelda and Mipha have the same voice.

What bothers me about the game is, that it establishes a lot of game mechanics but they are barely used for anything important.

I also wonder why BotW is not compared the "Ubisoft formula" games a lot more:
Climbing towers to reveal map? Check!
Randomly placed outposts with respawning enemies? Check!
Collectibles anywhere? Check!
Breaking weapons? Check! (FC2)
Weak main story? Check!
Filler sidequests? Check!

Let's drop the Zelda nostalgia glasses for a bit. I would say Nintendo has really out-Ubisoft-ed Ubisoft here! Yet Ubisoft is criticized while Nintendo is praised for exactly the same things!

That said, the game has it's moments. My favorite moment was when I bought the Lizalfos Mask mask, equipped it and then walked up to the first Lizalfos. Hilarious! Some of the cut scenes are really great. It's fun to figure out the game mechanics.

I would give it a 7/10.
I think Eiji Aonuma has played Far Cry 4 and has incorporated some of Ubisoft open world concepts into Zelda :

https://mynintendonews.com/2015/02/...uma-expresses-interest-in-the-far-cry-series/
 
Started playing this on PC with CEMU using a Wii U copy, quite a lovely game, this is downscaled from 4k down to 1080p:

cemuscreenshot2017.09pty3t.jpg

cemuscreenshot2017.09ypzwp.jpg


Someone also worked on a Dualshock 4 mod which is quite convenient :D

cemuscreenshot2017.093fxbv.jpg


Link:
 
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