Take away my gamer badge if you want, but Breath of the Wild didn’t feel like a Zelda game to me, it felt like a Xenoblade game.
It’s not a bad game at all, of course, I just don’t like it as much as say, Ocarina of Time or Windwaker.
I wasn’t a fan of the lack of real dungeons, the small pool of enemies and the even smaller pool of bosses (Bosses are usually my favorite part of Zelda). It all got very same-y fast.
I usually don’t like to complain about graphics, but I really wasn’t a fan of Breath of the Wilds art style. There was very little texture or definition to anything, which made the characters faces look like a blob of colours sometimes. I usually love cell shading too. In my opinion, Windwaker did it much better. It probably helps that Windwakers character designs complimented the style.
It also sucks that Ganon was reduced to a generic evil purple cloud without any character other then “ROAR!”. He was an interesting, intelligent and intimidating character in Windwaker (I know I keep using Windwaker as an example shut up).
I kinda miss when Zelda games had that Dungeons and Dragons kind of feel to its world, with uncanny things like redeads, wallmasters and deadhands living deep in dungeons that felt like no one had set foot in them in hundreds of years.
I hope the new Breath of the Wild is at least going to have some more variety than the first one.
EDIT: Oh, and the music. The Legend of Zelda series has some of the most memorable music of all time. However, BotW went for minimalist piano tinkling with no real memorable tracks. I struggle to think of more then one. Not saying the music was bad, but again, it just wasn’t Zelda. Zelda music isn’t supposed to be forgettable background piano ambiance.
I agree, except I would go further and say it was a bad game (IMO). I couldn’t finish it, it was boring.
It’s not the worst zelda game because there are simply bad ones and botw isn’t a bad game. But it’s a very mediocre game and lacks basically everything unique about the zelda series. This isn’t a particularly rare opinion among zelda fans tbh
It’s not the worst zelda game because there are simply bad ones
which ones?
Four swords, phantom hourglass… zelda 2 lmao
As with any opinion about media I’m sure there are people who will act like I personally kicked their puppy for saying those games are bad though
Zelda 2’s an interesting one since it was a dead end for design within the series, but did have some influence on other devs - Nihon Falcom’s Dragon Slayer games ultimately took after it, as did Taito Corp.'s Cadash.
The Dragon Slayer series was a mainstay of Japanese home computers and didn’t get much of a international run, but Dragon Slayer 2: Xanadu did get a spinoff known as Faxanadu that saw international release. Likewise, Sierra On-Line localized and ported Dragon Slayer 5: Sorcerian for english audiences using MS-DOS-based PCs.
It’s not the worst zelda game because there are simply bad ones and botw isn’t a bad game. But it’s a very mediocre game and lacks basically everything unique about the zelda series
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too.
This isn’t a particularly rare opinion among zelda fans tbh
When it first came out people were raving about it, so I guess people mellowed out.
When it first came out people were raving about it, so I guess people mellowed out.
I think this is because it genuinely broke the formula that was getting incredibly boring with open world games. The Ubisoft formula of linear gameplay presented in an open world format was tossed out in favour of complete and total player freedom, with the only linear story component essentially being a tutorial.
We haven’t seen AAA devs tackle making a world where you can literally run straight to the final boss in the first 20 minutes of the game before. With nothing but world design itself deterring players from doing that. In terms of open world design and player-created emergent gameplay it’s second to none.
This definitely comes at the expense of certain elements of traditional Zelda design though. Traditional Zelda design is predicated upon tools that Link collects functioning as linear gameplay gates, you can’t progress to a certain area without a hookshot, you can’t progress to the area where you would get the hookshot with a boomerang, you can’t etc etc etc. This loop of “acquire new tool to unlock more progress” is not compatible with the kind of world where freedom is limitless. I agree however that more traditional feeling puzzle dungeons could exist but there’s some serious limitations to design if you can’t design the puzzles around knowing the player will have X tools when they get there.
I mean, we have. Morrowind can be completed without bugs in about 20min, even without taking the “back path” and avoiding the main quest (I think it’s 7 min for that).
Less if you don’t count the v1.0 alchemy singularity as a bug. You can just walk up, get keening and sunder, stab the heart with them before you die, and win.
I admit that I feel pretty much all of that. I never grew up with Zelda, BOTW was my first, but having since played LttP, Minish Cap, and OoT and watching playthroughs of the rest of the series before having played BOTW I get it. BOTW is such an incredible experiment and proof of concept, but man do I wish they had the plot and character interactions of classic Zelda.
This is a criticism I’ve seen from people who admit BOTW is their favorite game ever, its complicated. Great video that talks about it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAcntjKChy8
BOTW is such an incredible experiment and proof of concept,
Tbh I think this is the thread through zelda games, charting new ground in action fantasy. It’s not a single vibe that defines them but impactful novelty.
True, like the Wii games trying to incorporate the new functionality. However I would say BOTW is different in that so much of it is experimental. They had the most fun with making a physics engine someone has since Valve, they perfected UI, revolutionized exploration, etc. Just the mechanical and developmental side of things is genuinely revolutionizing. Little things like stamina https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGkG3VGWtls
I enjoyed Breath of the Wild a ton, but I definitely get what you mean. I do genuinely love the exploration aspect of it, but aside from that it feels very…shallow. Without the dungeons, it feels like there’s no core to the game. I could have done with a few more towns too.
I loved that game a lot but you right. I think my dream sequel is BOTW’s general game mechanics but in a much smaller world with at least a dozen dungeons to delve into. All of the puzzles shrines were nice and satisfying to solve, so instead of spreading them out and having one puzzle per shrine do a dungeon with like five to ten puzzles inside it and a boss - all of the pieces are there. Also while I like having a world that you can explore at your own pace and challenges you can complete in any order but there’s no reason that world needs to be super huge, BOTW’s world feels like it hinders gameplay more often than it enhances it.
so instead of spreading them out and having one puzzle per shrine do a dungeon with like five to ten puzzles inside it and a boss
no
you can pry my shrines from my open world over my corpse
that said I think your other points are spot on and I’d be super down with all the scattered shrines being retained in totk AND more complex bosses instead of the ezpz divine beast “puzzles”
