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Everything that is wrong with BOTW in one simple picture.

AmuroChan

Member
To me, it's an 8/10 type game. I enjoyed it, but I never felt like it was some revolutionary, unforgettable game. Yes, the freedom of exploration is incredible, but the open world itself is largely barren and not particularly interesting.
 

Arkam

Member
I am right there with the OP about the lack of NPC/MOB variety.... but that’s it. The game was a revelation for open world games. Instead of making a huge world as the backdrop for content , the terrain IS the content. BOTW and Death Stranding damn near ruined open world games for me.
I LOVE GoT... but it took a while for me to get use to the “old school” traversal limitations. Only climbing in designated areas and copious use of blocking volumes was painful.

In BOTW/DS you you have a set of rules that dictate your limits of terrain traversal. Such a fantastic way to do things as it allows for emergent experiences.

The weapon breaking didn’t bother me, though I would have enjoyed stats so you knew of close to breaking it was. And should have had a “resource sink” for repairing.

Still, easily one of my all time favorite games.

Edit: Forgot to mention how awesome the fire/water/electricity/ magnetism systems were. Would love to see a game that took them to the next level.
 
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recursive

Member
Botw is the mgs5 of the series.
There is a solid foundation but they failed to make a good game out of it.

The perfect scores are one of the many failures of gaming journalism.


6/10, no more.
Giant walking simulator, boring puzzles. It has all been done before much better.
 

dcx4610

Member
As someone who has mostly fallen out of love with Nintendo in the past decade, I actually played and finished BotW and put a good 60+ hours into it.

Nintendo games just don't grab me anymore and I thought this one was going to feel like a beginner's MMO. It grabbed me and hooked me until the very end and I think it has one of the most epic endings I've ever seen. Yes, the weapon breaking was annoying and I could have done without that mechanic but it wasn't game breaking. The world did feel a little empty and boring but the story, game play, puzzles and presentation made for a great game. I wouldn't go 10/10 but it's certainly a 8/10 or 9/10 game.
 

bender

What time is it?
Everything wrong in the OP in one simple picture:

derp.png
 
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ReBurn

Gold Member
I've had it for a while. I've had a hard time getting into it so I just haven't played it.
 

Zog

Banned
It's not a bad game, but it is probably the most overrated game I've ever played.
Well, there's Skyrim. That game was declared GOTY 5 months before it released. Dragon groupies were coming out of the woodwork because no game had ever had dragons in it before. Also there's Dark Souls which people had to mention in every gaming topic for years as if it were the benchmark all games should strive for.
 
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Well, there's Skyrim. That game was declared GOTY 5 months before it released. Also there's Dark Souls which people had to mention in every gaming topic for years as if it were the benchmark all games should strive for.

I'll give you Skyrim. BotW is 10x better than Skyrim.

But, Dark Souls, nah. It's not quite as good as Demon's Souls or Bloodborne, but it's still one of the best games of the last 15 years.
 

Zog

Banned
I'll give you Skyrim. BotW is 10x better than Skyrim.

But, Dark Souls, nah. It's not quite as good as Demon's Souls or Bloodborne, but it's still one of the best games of the last 15 years.
It was still overrated as hell. People just couldn't shut up about it. It's like it was the second coming of Christ.
 

Xaero Gravity

NEXT LEVEL lame™
I think it's a great game held back by a number of design choices that I simply wasn't a fan of and as a result it was a decent sized disappointment for me overall. Hopefully the sequel improves upon it, but there's no way it'll be a day one purchase for me. Going to wait and see what non BOTW fans think about it before I jump in.
 
I think it's a really good game. I'm no die hard.... The only 3 I have enjoyed are this, windwaker and ocorina.

I never understand how zelda consistently get 10/10 though. If the game had a different name and publisher (but was the exact same game) it would be rated lower.
 
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Exploring and goofing around in the world of Breath of the Wild is great fun, but engaging with the actual game and its story, not so much. Certain decisions, such as weapon durability, are arguable in their implementation. The core problem is character controls that aren't flexible enough to cover both the explorative and action portions of the game. Link always controls like an animated bag of sand, when sometimes you'd like him to be a ninja. I think back to all the perfect review scores and wonder how many of those people beat the game, instead of writing pieces based on hours-and-hours of climbing mountains and gliding over the (admittedly amazing) landscape.
 
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deriks

4-Time GIF/Meme God
- Bosses kinda look the same because they're supposed to be different versions of the same character
- "same enemies in every place". It's not really the case because of Lizalfos and Moblins and others. I get it that need more, but it's not really that bad
- "story sucks"... it was the point. People we're tired of story focused Zelda games. The game is very much about gameplay, and a simple "yeah, you need to kill the bad guy" story. It's like you say that the Doom story sucks. Bitch, please
- No Man's Sky 2? I bet that you killed with this joke in stand-up comedy. No?! Yeah, you suck

Of course there's a lot of flaws in the game. Having all the billion koroks sucks. Weapons breaking in like two hits sucks. You can't fill the hearts if you fill the stamina sucks. And what the fuck was with the photography thing?
 

Retinoid

Member
I think as time has passed, people are more willing to talk about the issues BOTW had. It was never a masterpiece on release, and the obsession the industry had with the game was rather disturbing given the tendency for people to bury their heads in the sand when the topic turned to the weaknesses of the game (of which the game had many). People acting as if BOTW was some kind of revolution in open worlds when other, smaller studios were using the same design philosophy for years prior yet were completely ignored. Look at Pyrannah Bytes as an example. Tiny studio, but they arguably perfected the open world formula despite the inherent jank present in their games.

There is definitely a cult around certain franchises present in the industry, and Zelda is arguably right at the top of the list.
 
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gradient

Resident Cheap Arse
"Simple picture"

Proceeds to post mess of images, text of varying size and placement and screenshots of whatever they could drag together in MS paint, that is like looking at a 5 year old's after school project.

Look, it's okay to not like a game, but that kind of babbling scrawling doesn't make for a strong basis for argument. Particularily when it's various "points" amount to childishly reductionist hyperbole attempting to pose as valid critisim.

I mean, hell man. That image is basically Console Warz Kid mentality in image format.
 
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Bakkus

Member
- Bosses kinda look the same because they're supposed to be different versions of the same character
- "same enemies in every place". It's not really the case because of Lizalfos and Moblins and others. I get it that need more, but it's not really that bad
- "story sucks"... it was the point. People we're tired of story focused Zelda games. The game is very much about gameplay, and a simple "yeah, you need to kill the bad guy" story. It's like you say that the Doom story sucks. Bitch, please
- No Man's Sky 2? I bet that you killed with this joke in stand-up comedy. No?! Yeah, you suck
- You call that a good counter argument? It's obvious that's integral to the complaint; The same enemy is the boss fight for all 4 bosses.
- I didn't like it myself, but it's far from the biggest problem with the game.
- No, people were not.
- Don't care about NMS

There are a lot of more complaints to be made. Alongside no story, there are almost no memorable sequences, no memorable NPCs (other than maybe that little professor, but she was just a ripoff of Edna from The Incredibles), sidequests are almost all a chore to do with lousy rewards (like one sapphire, one ruby, 10 Opals, etc). Tarrey Town could've been great, but ultimately feels way too barren and lifeless and ends up feeling more like a place you go to easily fill up your weapon inventory than anything else.
 
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Kuranghi

Member
Here is some things I loved about BotW:

* Finding and marking where super rare fruits and vegetables were on the map, or finding a big shoal of porgies, a gold mine for armor and attack potions.
* Working out that I could shoot the Swift Violets with the bow in the giant mushroom field to save tons of time collecting them.
* Trying to find ways increasingly more ludicrous ways to hit Blupees more times per second to maximise how many rupees I got from them.
* Finding an enemy carrying an eightfold longblade and coming back to try and get the drop every once in a while.
* Finding Giant Boomerangs randomly since it was my favourite weapon. I basically collected every chest in the game I think and there aren't that many, 5 or 7 I think. I think there are Lizalfos carrying them in a copse filled with either mushroom trees or small rock plateaus shaped like that on the north eastern shore, but I don't think they drop them.
 

DGrayson

Mod Team and Bat Team
Staff Member
im not going to rebut ecah point but my main problem with BOTW was the enemy variety. Needed more enemies. Besides that, perfection.gif
 
I still consider BotW a top ten game going all the way back to the early 80's.

Never imagined I would feel a sense of nostalgia thinking of a game from 2017. People came over and sat on my living room floor just to watch me play and I did the same. It reminded me of when I was a kid and used to go over to my friend's houses to see the new games.
 

DunDunDunpachi

Patient MembeR
The franchise was stuck in a rut of trying to iterate on the same Ocarina of Time formula: use namesake object to puzzle solve in the world and revisit the same themes with a fresh coat of paint. Oh, and a rotating list of the same old Zelda tools too. Here you go.

Breath of the Wild took it back to its roots: a freeform adventure where you can be as thorough or as minimalistic as you wish, with all of the necessary puzzle-solving tools given to you within the first few hours. It is the best 3d Zelda title in my opinion.
 

Enjay

Banned
Never understood the mental health problems one might have to go through so much anxiety about weapons breaking, especially when you literally can't go more than a few steps without finding another one.

I don't know anything about Kratos.


Cures cancer too, so I hear.

Testimonial: I was feeling depressed and alone. My love affair with Nintendo was gone and I was contemplating buying a gaming PC but then I played BOTW and I was revitalized. Even my prostate cancer was gone! Thanks Nintendo!
I think you're confused with astrobot fans
 
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OrtizTwelve

Member
hkw013b0g4xz.png


Sure, it is heavily exaggerated, but not wrong.

-The world is huge, yet it feels like you get a korok seed or a shrine most of the time as a reward which is repetitive, uncreative and makes exploration significantly less fun (atleast for me). It doesn't help that the shrines all have the same design. Seriously, you can count the exceptions of substantial rewards with one hand which is just sad for an exploration driven game.

- the bosses all look the same too which is correct.

-the story is not terrible, but it's not great either. Most of it already happened so it doesn't connect to you, the player, directly and you can't interact with it in any way other than watching little movies. The story in the present is, aside from the Zora and Gerudo one maybe, very lackluster and boring. There are no plot twists and the whole story is presented to you from the old man after you beat the Great Plateu.

- lacking enemy variety is true as well.

- the dungeons and shrines feel indeed, very similar to each other. Be it Divine Beasts or Shrines, sadly.

I think these are all valid critic points against BOTW and I seriously hope BOTW2 will fix all of them. BOTW is a great game, but it has many flaws that can be dramatically improved upon.

I feel that breath of the wild is one of the greatest games I have ever been immersed in within the last decade.

A lot of those points are valid. It’s still a fantastic game though, and I’m not really bothered by any of it.
 
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