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[Kokoloko85]

No game is perfect. And at the same time can be rightfully perfect for some people.

And for everyone game that is loved there will people who genuinely dislike it.

Even if a game is a 10/10 people will dislike it and it doesn’t make them a hater.

Name a perfect game and I will shit on it for you:

Example.
Half life 2‘s 1st half was a snore, how can it be called the GOAT shooter?
Witcher 3 has some of the worst combat Ive ever played and awful bugs
TLOU is just cutscenes and a standard shooter.. ( really its not lol )
Ocarina of time had some awful dungeons and shitty Frame rates

I love 4 out of 3 of those games....


BOTW is an awesome experience with great charm, one of the greatest games. I fucking hate the weapon break mechanic to this day and have other issues with it...

 

[Halo is Back]

It's easily one of the most sanbox open world games ever. Other than the weapon breaking system BOTW is one of the best games I have ever had the pleasure of playing.

 

[Jokerevo]

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.

Agreed. It is the most overrated game of all time. Doesn't even have dungeons which is a huge mistake. It's also incredibly easy

 

[carlosrox]

That stupid picture mentions a bunch of crap that barely passes as good criticisms but doesn't mention the one true flaw of the game being that the music was way underwhelming.

It only mentions repeated music in the shrines. The Shrine music is awesome though, I didn't complain about hearing it so much. The main problem is the game not having more involved and dynamic music that plays more often.

The game is too quiet.

Had there been excellent music more often it would have made a huge difference.

For me that is truly BOTW's biggest flaw. I'm willing to accept everything else except the music being underwhelming.

Oh and it is still one of the best games ever made even with its flaws.

 

[Imru’ al-Qays]

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.

Dark Souls is the benchmark all games should strive for

 

[Ferdinandthecowfish]

Dark Souls is the benchmark all games should strive for

Bloodbourne, but yeah, I agree.

 

[Dampf]

That stupid picture mentions a bunch of crap that barely passes as good criticisms but doesn't mention the one true flaw of the game being that the music was way underwhelming.

It only mentions repeated music in the shrines. The Shrine music is awesome though, I didn't complain about hearing it so much. The main problem is the game not having more involved and dynamic music that plays more often.

The game is too quiet.

Had there been excellent music more often it would have made a huge difference.

For me that is truly BOTW's biggest flaw. I'm willing to accept everything else except the music being underwhelming.

Oh and it is still one of the best games ever made even with its flaws.

Indeed. I like the silence and nature sounds sometimes, but it's way too much. As soon as you were to enter a story relevant area, a memorable OST should kick in.

 

[Kataploom]

Many of the points can easily be countered. For example:

1. Breakable weapons? The game has tons of weapons by each step, even after getting almost all of my inventory space I can't have empty spaces because there's always a replacement or a something I think will be useful.

They could make them unbreakable and make each work better for some chemical interactions or enemy types, tho, so people won't use the same weapon all the time anyway.

Anyway, the game seems to not to be designed for melee combat alone, you have to use environments or else you'll die hundreds of time cursing the devs LMAO.

I've learnt how to play with bombs, rocks, winds, fire, etc. in order to avoid using finite resources unless totally necessary, also I learnt to use arrows more and give importance to aconomy due to how important resources, specially rupees are for game adventure management.

2. No dungeons? Stop. It has dungeons. It has variety of shrine puzzles. Maybe you don't like that aartistically they all look very similar, but if they looked more different, you'd probably wouldn't say they're all the same.

Also, if it wasn't untill I played it, I wouldn't know the game had actual more traditional dungeons like the divine beasts, hyperbole makes one think the game literally has NO dungeons lmao, WTF?

3. Dub? I played it in latinamerican spanish. Many people play it in japanese despite not speaking japanes (I probably will some time in the future).

4. I can understand enemy variety, but mostly because even when there's variety, the most common enemies are way too common. They could have spread them much better.

5. Performance. Cool, I get it, tho it's a good thing performance issues are never present on actual world exploration, only some towns.

6. I've loved the story so far. I haven't beaten Ganon yet, tho.. I'm having a break from the game right now while exploring and relaxing.

7. The open world is not empty LMAO, you have quests, you have random events like enemies, you have super powerfull enemies etc. And just searching the shrines and kologs gives you a lot to do in between. Also, there are many random things to try like riding a bear in the snow, etc. that would help you reaching specific places.

I don't know, it's not a perfect game, but it gets a lot of hate just because people expect something else instead of try and understand the game's rules and play inside them.

 

[carlosrox]

Indeed. I like the silence and nature sounds sometimes, but it's way too much. As soon as you were to enter a story relevant area, a memorable OST should kick in.

Agreed 100%. There should have been entire areas with unique music, and dynamic music that kicks in depending how close you are to an area, what you're doing, etc.

It made so much sense I totally assumed it was gonna make it in. But no, you hear the same 5 second jingles repeated nonstop on the overworld. Such a bad choice.

The best part is when you're riding the horse (and at night only for some reason) and Hyrule Castle cuz guess what, the music is amazing.

 

[Indyblue]

Sure, I agree with some of that. Every game has shortcomings. Still my, and a lot of other people’s, favorite game ever. You aren’t right that it’s a bad game.

 

[Rean no Kiseki]

10/10 doesn't mean a perfect game OP, it's a good fun game and a promising fresh start to an aging franchise, it's not my favorite Zelda but i enjoyed my time with even though i think it's far from the "BEST OPEN WORLD GAME EVAAAAA!" etc, idiots say that about everything, that's why i hate shit like GOTY/GOTG.

Is it better than the Ubisoft/Bethesda games it's clearly copied/took inspiration from? Debatable but i think it isn’t, is it the best game ever? No, there's no such thing, is it a promising start to a wide possibilities of things for the series and other Nintendo franchises? Oh hell yes!

 

[MrTroubleMaker]

So true

 

[Kenpachii]

U can make a picture of this for any game. Breath of the wild is one of my favorite games this generation. It's simplistic to the point and exploration with barely any talking is exactly what i want. Also looked great and music was great.

 

[Krisprolls]

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 kinda agree. It's still a good game but widely overrated.

Nintendo games are the most consistently overrated due to nostalgia. Everybody loved them as a child, so reviewing new games means you get all those great memories back. Nothing can beat childhood sweet memories coming back. It basically adds 1 point out of 10 to every Nintendo game review.

 

[RoboFu]

- Same op that has been posted a hundred times.
- same crying about weapon degradation
- same missing the whole point of the game

I give this op a 2/10

 

[Hugare]

Most overrated game of all time, imo

How can anyone consider it to be the best of all time is just insane.

There are SO MANY obvious, important flaws to its structure.

I understand how people have different tastes and yadda yadda. Deadly Premonition is one of my favorite games.

But Deadly Premonition has 68 MC score. BoTW having a 97 MC is just ... unbelievable.

 

[Ozzy Onya A2Z]

Degrading weapons + stamina bar + slow climbing = boring ass not fun game. I quit BotW so fast, couldn't stand how slow and repetitious this game was.

 

[Enzo88]

Personal goat. Since then 95% of games feel stupid to me.

 

[Ceadeus]

It's a huge game with real good foundation but ultimately fails to ever reward the player. There's never a sense of progression. It's a sandbox first and a Zelda game secondly.

It's good and it sucks at the same time.

 

[GreetingsMortal]

I played for 6 hours and was hella bored. So I guess I agree. But don't like open world in general so I think most of these issues apply to the entire genre.

 

[zcaa0g]

Steel weapons don't break against flesh or bone. Ever. Stupid concept.

 

[Mossybrew]

Most overrated game of all time, imo

I'm inclined to agree, I rarely comment on this game because "some rando's hot take" but the amount of love it gets is baffling. I mean, there are things I like about it, it has a certain chill vibe, but a lot of stuff just runs against even that. And I'm not a fan of puzzles in games (see lately: Fenyx Rising) so much of the gameplay in shrines to me is just tedious busywork. Overall it's just like, "wide open world, do what you want!" but what can you really do except explore a low-def last-gen feeling world and kill samey enemies and ... cook? Cooking was pretty cool I guess.

 

[nkarafo]

Loved the open world.

Loved the big four Dungeons. Great puzzles and it was great how everything moved.

Loved the Hyrule Castle. Best part of the game.

Loved some mechanics like cooking.

Loved the physics.

Hated how there's only one visual theme for all dungeons and shrines.

Hated the constant item management and having to painstakingly replace the 3 armor parts every time you had to do something: Swim, Climb, Fight, Stealth, etc. You have a stupid tablet on your hand and no option to quick-change your armor sets. That was like Water Temple all over again, but for the whole game.

Hated the weapons breaking after a few hits.

Hated how there's really only a few pieces of proper music.

Hated the Koroks. Gave up after the 200th.


It's definitely a 7/10. Maybe 8/10 at best. Great game, not nearly the best Zelda game at all.

 

[mcjmetroid]

I really though think it's sad that some people don't get BOTW.

I'm the first to criticize Nintendo for their shitty and overrated games but this wasn't one of them.

It's an absolutely gorgeous game that you can truly lose yourself in. It's very easy to get Into and tough to master.

It expertly manages to mix RPG elements with seemless gameplay.

It is perfect? No
Is it still one of the most unique games ever? Yes

10/10 for me

 

[Bryank75]

Good game but massively overrated. I can understand most reviewers now grew up on Nintendo, as did I..... it would feel like a sin to give Zelda lower than 9-10 but in the longterm, it does more damage to not be honest.

Developers in Nintendo need honest feedback the same as others do to improve and evolve.

I just went to watch some combat and it's so so dated, depends on the same core as Oot did, the three hit combo. Sure, they put in some physics stuff like the magnet and wind-currents to get vertical on the enemy..... but the combat is flat and lacks energy and dynamism. About 20 years behind the rest of the industry.

 

[Kev Kev]

Immortals: Fenyx Rising is a better game than BOTW. Just removing weapon breakage alone makes it a better game.

Also, minus the gacha stuff, Genshin Impact is far superior to BOTW and Nintendo should be looking at it when thinking about BOTW 2.

 

[BbMajor7th]

For me, the biggest drawback was the utter artificiality of the world. The lack of environmental storytelling or life-like characters hit hardest for me. Every NPC tells you about events from "100 years ago' (never 'a century' or 'long ago' - just '100 years') in the same way most of us would talk about what happened last week. After a while I started thinking 'has everyone literally sat on their ass this whole time?' Nothing seems to have happened to any of these characters since the calamity. And, terrible as Ganon is said to be, everyone seems to be getting on okay.

It shattered the immersion for me. It's an open world that makes no effort to be convincing as a world. It's systems are clever, if almost entirely drawn from existing Zelda games, but it's world is soulless.

 

[RCU005]

I think Breath of the Wild was considered the best because of the sum of its parts. Of course the game is so flawed, and I agree in many things about that image. There is no enemy variety at all, breakable weapons are the worst (not because they break but because they don't last at all), etc. There are many things that suck in this game that hopefully will be fixed in the sequel.

HOWEVER, I think this game was considered the best firstly because it was the first Zelda game with voice acting. That alone was a shocking revelation. Then, I think it made a huge impact that the game could actually be finished in any order and you could actually go to the final boss since the start. It gave a false sense of openness. People was saying that it was the first truly open game without boundaries (summed with the fact to you could climb everything and everywhere).

Also, it returned to the classic formula of Zelda from NES and SNES.

Breath of the Wild had many huge and excellent ideas that SHOULD keep expanding on. The voice over should definitely stay forever. IMO, this game will completely change the way a Zelda game is made in the future just like Ocarina of Time did on the N64. I think the next Zelda after the Breath of the Wild sequel(s)? will be a test to know if Nintendo actually learned and make a new, epic Zelda again.

 

[LordCBH]

The only things I hated was the mediocre licensed game style stealth they decided to shoehorn in, and the awful weapon durability system.

 

[Troglodyte]

Not a fan. World felt lifeless

 

[Sejan]

The game certainly isn’t perfect, but I firmly believe it deserves its 10/10 provided you don’t demand perfection from that score (in which case no game would ever get a 10). This game completely changed the way that I think about open worlds. Tweak the weapon/battle system and add some more enemy variety and I’d have virtually nothing to complain about. Having just replayed the game a week ago, i can definitely say that my original feelings on the game remain intact. BotW is an open world that will be studied for years to come. I can only hope that BotW2 recaptures that magic.

 

[Dampf]

- Same op that has been posted a hundred times.
- same crying about weapon degradation
- same missing the whole point of the game

I give this op a 2/10

For the record, I don't have anything against weapon durability. Maybe weapons can be repaired in the future, then it would be perfect.

I stated that the picture is overreacting and console wars mentality in my OP so I do not necessarily agree with it 100%.

 

[BbMajor7th]

The game certainly isn’t perfect, but I firmly believe it deserves its 10/10 provided you don’t demand perfection from that score (in which case no game would ever get a 10). This game completely changed the way that I think about open worlds. Tweak the weapon/battle system and add some more enemy variety and I’d have virtually nothing to complain about. Having just replayed the game a week ago, i can definitely say that my original feelings on the game remain intact. BotW is an open world that will be studied for years to come. I can only hope that BotW2 recaptures that magic.

I hear this type of thing a lot, but people never really provide examples. As an open world, Breath of the Wild is Skyrim with Zelda plugged in. The mechanics are exactly what you'd expect from Zelda, only with a BethSoft open world - except BethSoft worlds are so much more open ended and varied and BotW's is kinda shallow.

 

[gamekid]

botum uv da cla$

 

[Dampf]

I kinda agree. It's still a good game but widely overrated.

Nintendo games are the most consistently overrated due to nostalgia. Everybody loved them as a child, so reviewing new games means you get all those great memories back. Nothing can beat childhood sweet memories coming back. It basically adds 1 point out of 10 to every Nintendo game review.

Nostalgia may play a minor role, but Nintendo games are just that good in general and unlike anything else on the market, they deserve their high ranking.

My favorite Zelda game is Majoras Mask, yet it is the Zelda game I have the least nostalgia for because I played it at a much later date than all the other 3D Zeldas.

 

[onnextflix5]

Its Nintendo, ur never going get a good storyline lol, only things i missed was dungeons and items, don't know what else they can do with botw2, they should go back to traditional zelda but bit more open.

 

[gamekid]

nuthing betz Zelda

 

[infinitys_7th]

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.

This is a near perfect analogy. The only issues is that MGSV has the FOB side that makes up for a lot of the wasted potential on the story mode-side. BotW doesn't have that extra bit to make it truly compelling.

TBH I don't really know what they can do with BotW2. If it is still set in Hyrule, which it appears ro be, you've been everywhere already. Adding ultra secret Shrines V2 and stuff would be lame. That's the Tales of Symphonia 2 shit where "There is a whole new secret dungeon right behind the end of all of the old dungeons hyuck", gameplay-wise. And story-wise. . .ugh. Creating new world-ending conflict after thoroughly resolving the old one never works unless you want to be campy and silly.

 

[StateofMajora]

It's objectively the worst 3d zelda but you'll never convince most people.

 

[Azelover]

Exploring the world was great, and all the things that you could do. The shrines had some really cool and inventive puzzles and stuff.

The only reason I don't like BotW so much is the combat. Just not my cup of tea..

 

[Sejan]

I hear this type of thing a lot, but people never really provide examples. As an open world, Breath of the Wild is Skyrim with Zelda plugged in. The mechanics are exactly what you'd expect from Zelda, only with a BethSoft open world - except BethSoft worlds are so much more open ended and varied and BotW's is kinda shallow.

I think it has to do with the lack of invisible walls and the way the world itself is constructed. With BotW, there are virtually no invisible walls outside the map borders and a very few specific mountain tops. In Skyrim and others I feel like I run into walls all the time. Too often mountains can only be climbed with specific walls with common instances of knee high ledges that the player just can’t pass. Often in open worlds, climbing becomes a game of where is the next specifically colored ledge that i can actually climb. BotW created a world that is easily explorable with minimal barriers. Interestingly, Nintendo still managed to create several linear areas that had to be traversed in specific ways. For example, the Zora domain has a story related storm that forced the player to travel a certain path. Bethesda or Ubisoft would have likely chosen invisible walls, an annoying escort quest, or a forced walking section for the same effect. The world, it’s systems, and the player’s interaction with them are just constructed in a way that is superior to any other open world I’ve played through to date.

Nintendo trusted its players to be able to competently explore. Ubisoft and Bethesda to that point largely filled the world with icons to follow that largely made its worlds meaningless as they large just asked you to chase quest markers and compass markers. I can’t tell you the number of times that I’ve zoned out playing Skyrim or assassins creed as I just tried to keep going toward the next icon. Using verticality and the clever use of contrasting shapes and colors Nintendo made a world that actually entrusted the player to spot landmarks and make their way toward them.


In short, I see two things that Nintendo did better than most others to that point. First, they made a truly open world that the player can more freely explore. Second, they made an open world that you actually have to explore rather than just following an icon to the next point of interest. Nintendo made a fascinating open world and actually entrusted its players to explore it.

 

[Spukc]

Man it must fucking hurt so so so soooo bad this game won so many goty’s

 

[R6Rider]

I'm enjoying Immortals a lot more than I enjoyed BotW. The high scores shouldn't surprise anyone. It's a Nintendo game so that automatically makes it a 8/10+ for whatever reason.

 

[BbMajor7th]

I think it has to do with the lack of invisible walls and the way the world itself is constructed. With BotW, there are virtually no invisible walls outside the map borders and a very few specific mountain tops. In Skyrim and others I feel like I run into walls all the time. Too often mountains can only be climbed with specific walls with common instances of knee high ledges that the player just can’t pass. Often in open worlds, climbing becomes a game of where is the next specifically colored ledge that i can actually climb. BotW created a world that is easily explorable with minimal barriers. Interestingly, Nintendo still managed to create several linear areas that had to be traversed in specific ways. For example, the Zora domain has a story related storm that forced the player to travel a certain path. Bethesda or Ubisoft would have likely chosen invisible walls, an annoying escort quest, or a forced walking section for the same effect. The world, it’s systems, and the player’s interaction with them are just constructed in a way that is superior to any other open world I’ve played through to date.

Nintendo trusted its players to be able to competently explore. Ubisoft and Bethesda to that point largely filled the world with icons to follow that largely made its worlds meaningless as they large just asked you to chase quest markers and compass markers. I can’t tell you the number of times that I’ve zoned out playing Skyrim or assassins creed as I just tried to keep going toward the next icon. Using verticality and the clever use of contrasting shapes and colors Nintendo made a world that actually entrusted the player to spot landmarks and make their way toward them.


In short, I see two things that Nintendo did better than most others to that point. First, they made a truly open world that the player can more freely explore. Second, they made an open world that you actually have to explore rather than just following an icon to the next point of interest. Nintendo made a fascinating open world and actually entrusted its players to explore it.

Thanks for the full and detailed answer. I'd can't entirely disagree on the first point, but it feels like a bit of a wasted gimmick as it still artificially walls off the most important areas with certain checks (Zora Domain is a good example) and in this way demonstrates less freedom than a game like Skyrim.

And I don't feel the second point really applies to Skyrim as memory serves. Waypoints are rarely straightforward treks and diving into a barrow really is a trek into the unknown in a way Zelda never really replicates.

Moreover, BotW is a major step back from TW3 in regards to underwater and indoor exploration (caves, castles, ruins, portals).

Both TW3 and Skyrim have awesome moments of long quests spent crawling through caves only to emerge in a completely different part of the map.

 

[lachesis]

It comes down how you look at things. I can certainly see the critics point of view. Considering that, it all boils down if one actually had fun playing it or not.

For me, the feeling of exploration and intricate realization of various natural elements and all really was something quite special. Story wise, I think it was pretty strong one for a Zelda game, which actually showed a lot of side characters backstory and all - thus making them much more personable. The experience was quite magical in whole, I find BOTW as one of my favorite Zelda game, right up there with Ocarina of Time, and Wind Waker.

 

[iHaunter]

It's an average game with Nintendo's stamp on it. I still enjoyed it. But I wouldn't give it more than a 7. I'm looking forward to the next one.

 

[Entroyp]

BoTW is a 7 game at best if it wasn’t made by Nintendo.

 

[Boaty McBoatface]

The game is just fucking boring.

 

[Thirty7ven]

I bought a Switch for this game and it’s one of the most overrated games In recent memory.

The amount of shit it gets away just because it’s Zelda is pretty wild.

 

[Neil Young]

For those that consider BOTW a great game, what do you think it does better than the modern Assassin Creed games?

To me, BOTW does nothing better. In the Creed games there's an actual story, the graphics are incredible and diverse, and you're actually rewarded for your exploration with unique items that DON'T break. I get that you can play with the physics and tackle some situations differently in Zelda, but I can hang off Zeus' dong and slide down a pyramid in Creed.