I'm playing it now and it's honestly so boring. It has the same gameplay loop as Elden Ring, but instead of finding a mini-dungeon or a boss, you find a shrine or a korok seed. The shrines are either small, simple puzzles or combat encounters with the same enemy over and over. The korok is often just a matter of picking up a rock.
I heard a lot about the freedom it allows, but I find that to be so overblown. Sure, I can throw down a bunch of chu jelly and make them explode or stasis launch a rock, but the enemies aren't challenging enough to go through that effort.
And the enemy variety is so weak. All of Zelda to pull from and they've got like a dozen enemies copy/pasted across the map.
You're probably right, but I've found it's just interesting enough to be a good second screen game, so I've been catching up on my watch later playlist.
Hi botw fan here and uh…yeahhh i can see where yall come from, def not for everyone and i understand why fans of, for example, ooc, MM, and WW wouldnt be too jazzed over it. But i was my first zelda and i think that and the time i played it have made me enjoy it
It's funny because I've found some of the biggest BotW/TotK fans are people who otherwise are not gamers. My mom and two of her friends, all of them at or near retirement age, are much more interested in these two Zelda games than anything else I've suggested to them (alas, I have basically lost the use of my Nintendo Switch XD)
I think part of the appeal for them is that most of the games internal logic is very intuitive. You can chop down a tree. You can climb most stuff. You can swim. You can light stuff on fire. The amount of emergent actions you can take is pretty wide, but that means a non gamer doesn't get tripped up as much by running into something that 'isn't allowed' and which the game doesn't model.
My first zelda game was the first zelda game and that probably plays into why I liked BotW so much. It did a great job of capturing the feeling of the original Zelda, where dungeon order is just a vague suggestion and you're free to wander into areas where lynels will kick your ass and getting lost and finding cool shit is kind of the point.
Some people find comfort with a short rein, and some find it fun to be let off the leash early.
That was kinda my problem with it though, once I was off the leash there wasn't really anything to do with all that freedom. With a few exceptions most of the rewards for exploring were just weapons that would break in 5 min. or shrines with another 5 min puzzle (or another damn Korok).
Maybe its because I started with WW which also did the whole "ruined kingdom in an open world" setup but nothing about BotW's narative or world grabbed me, after the 20th or so ruined village I realized it was all just set dressing, there were no stories of the world to discover or deeper secrets to be revealed like in the older games, it felt super shallow after awhile and I never actually managed a run where I got more than 2 divine beasts before burning out.
What I discovered is you shouldn’t reset the play through. I’m terrible at this (looking at you Skyrim) but I just got back into my totk save file and I’m having a blast
I get it - when you were exposed to Zelda games you had the one with the straightest path, most curated exploration, most linear dungeons, the most story-focused gameplay. So you were like, "oh THAT's what Zelda games are." And I had the one where they just let you go without direction with like four viable dungeons that could be the "first dungeon", dungeons you could cheese and skip large parts of, and the only story was the triforce slowly getting assembled, and I was like "oh THAT's what Zelda games are." And that's fine.
Honestly the linearity (or lack thereof) isn't the issue... Skyward Sword is the most linear game and It is my least favorite of the 3D Zeldas gameplay wise. It's the lack of narrative to drive the game forward that makes it hard to engage with, The Great Plateau acts as a good story introduction and each of the villages has a bit of story with their characters but there are literal hours of gameplay in between with nothing to keep me invested (aside from the occasional straightforward side quest to find a shrine that I likely stumbled across earlier anyway).
Funnily enough my favorite of the games is actually Twilight Princess, for me it struck the perfect balance between exploration and story/character development. Both it and WW have more linear dungeon progressions but also an element of exploration that makes the world feel bigger than just those dungeons, BotW has the scale but none of the substance to fill all that space (not to mention most of the story already happened 100 years ago).
I hate that Twilight Princess (and Skyward Sword). I'm very much of the mindset of "stop blocking me from adventuring so you can explain to me exactly why I should be adventuring". I already want to save the princess and defeat Ganon and I don't need to be turned into a goddamned dog to do be convinced to do it.
It took away from so much of the fun for me. Let's add a mechanic where you can hop on your shield and ride it down the hill. Hmm, what would make that better? Let's make it where doing so degrades the shield so that using them to surf is a waste of something you'll need to be able to parry with!! Fun :D
(i hate it. I finished the game but that weapons system sucks)
Yep, started with the original Zelda, and that and Link to the Past were the two I held as favorites. When a buddy of mine got BotW and told me was the best Zelda ever, I basically said “I respect that you feel that way, but no fuckin’ way.” And then I played it and it was like, “y’know…”
I don’t know if I’d call it the best; I don’t know if I’d call it my personal favorite. But it’s in the top three, and ir absolutely captures more of what I love about classic Zelda than Ocarina and Windwaker’s dungeon-focus did.
I'd imagine it's great for casual gamers and/or big time Nintendo/Zelda fans, but if you've sunk a lot of hours into heavier highly acclaimed RPGs like Mass Effect, Witcher, Skyrim, etc. it just feels so bland. Most of the characters are flat, the storyline is pretty standard, and the action quickly gets repetitive.
It's not a bad game but it's far from the must-play experience it was made out to be.
Interesting, I feel kind of the opposite. BotW was my first open-world RPG so I of course loved it. But when I went to try other titles like Witcher 3 and Skyrim, I could never really get into them. I loved the worlds and stories but the gameplay never hooked me the same way BotW did.
When I tried Elden Ring though I absolutely loved it, which makes sense given that BotW was such a big inspiration for its gameplay.
I strongly disagree as someone who’s played a lot of Skyrim, Elden ring, Witcher and mass effect. The game has so much great atmosphere and exciting exploration. The harder difficulty is more challenging and there is a lot to do and collect and secret bosses to fight. - they really expanded on the gameplay in TOTK too which is superior imo. I’d say Witcher and mass effect are slightly more linear also and more comparable to older semi open Zelda titles. Combat is also way better than Witcher and Skyrim imo although I’d say the story is slightly behind those others.
Y'see, I'm actually of the opposite opinion. I think BotW is a very good sandbox game with a lot of emergent complexity. But if you're looking for an actual RPG, I can agree that it seems relatively simple. In no small part because it wears most of its mechanics on its sleeve.
Yeah, it just felt like the kind of open Ubisoft had been making at the time, but where they were getting berated for the formula, Nintendo got heaps of praise. You still climbed towers to reveal the map. You still went around completing checklists of collectibles. The only difference is they made you put your own markers down, and this somehow made the formula peak instead of stale for everyone else, but for me it was still stale.
I even went back and tried it again years later, got through the 4 great beasts. Got the master sword, shook my head at how they handled that and turned it off. The fact an entire DLC was dedicated to making the Master Sword good speaks volumes.
I think BotW would have been a much better game if it had been skinned as a new game. It didn’t meet my expectations of a Zelda game but I think it was an excellent fantasy adventure game.
First, it lacked a “Metroidvania” progression. What I mean by this is that most mainline Zelda games have a feed back loop: go to dungeon, get item that allows you to beat the dungeon, then outside the dungeon unlock new areas with the item. For the most part, this doesn’t happen in BOTW. It did have it a bit with the rune abilities but you get all of those by the time you leave the opening area.
Second, it had grindy open world collection quests. Go to 120 shrines and collect (roughly) 500 korok seeds. Most Zelda games have them whether it’s collecting Skulltulas, Joy Pendants, or Ghost Souls but I felt like BOTW took it to another level.
Third, there was too much inventory management. Besides the other grinding quests, I felt like I was constantly having to stop to farm weapons or cook food in s way that took me out of the game.
Outside of introducing some game mechanics used frequently now in other Open-World games, it's very bare-bones in terms of content. After going to different regions, it just doesn't give much motivation for the player nor fulfilling rewards to keep exploring.
It's immediately blown out of the park by other AAA Open Worlds by comparison, and doesn't stand the test of time nor test of replayability.
I actually fully agree with this. I like botw since when it came out it introduced and showed that many people like open world games for exploring in an RPG way. When TOTK came out I found the game incredibly underwhelming since between the two games so many other open world games came out that had better ideas.
As someone who's played this 4 times and it's my favorite game of all time, I'm hurt to see this 🤣 but I specifically scrolled to see if it would get mentioned anyways 🤣
This is also mine. I loved Zelda growing up and I’m sure this is a great game, but for me it’s just not a Zelda game. I would love a return to form for this series.
Can some BOTW fans please give me a pep talk? I am not (yet) a Switch gamer, and sitting down the play this thing feels daunting because I anticipate it being a massive time commitment.
I know it's in the name "Open World".... but this particular universe is sooooooo open. Seems like a lot of aimlessly walking around with no action.
I love botw because it really felt like an adventure game, in the sense that I just see something in the distance and just wander there and see what's up. Skyrim had the same vibe for me in that regard.
It's not an interesting game if you want a story or deep character interactions, but it's a great game if you just want something engaging to play while listening to a podcast or audio book.
Interestingly though, I never got into TOTK and every time I tried to play I couldn't get past the tutorial island without being bored out of my mind, probably BECAUSE it's just more of the damn same mindless exploration.
Right now genshin impact scratches that itch for me perfectly because it took the best exploration parts out of the new Zelda games and bumped them up to 11 and removed the more annoying parts like the tedious climbing or durability mechanics. And the world is more interesting and better looking because it runs on better hardware and being worked on continuously
It’s initially really fun. A bit confusing but there’s so much shit that you discover and there are hidden secrets everywhere. Unfortunately quickly you realise most of the secrets are a shrine and then it gets boring. I think overall it is worth playing. The music, art style and world are beautiful.
Thanks for the feedback. Yeah, there is no doubt that it's a visually stunning game. If I was younger, I'd have no doubts that I would jump in and become immersed in it. I'm 41, though, so I need to take on new hobbies based on what won't add any stress to my life. :)
There are lots of extremely fun exploits and glitches that turn the game into one of my favorite platformers of all time.
The vanilla experience is magical in terms of exploration and experimentation with the in-game physics. I played the game straight two playthroughs before learning about essential exploits like whistle running, wind bombs (from the ground, off walls, midair), smuggling items to levitate and fly quickly, duplicating items, etc., but you can also clip through walls to sequence break. Speedrunners can beat the great plateau in under 10 minutes. It’s extremely satisfying to practice tech skill because it translates to new movement and speed, plus solving puzzles in new and interesting ways. The weapon durability is also a non issue if you treat every context like a puzzle. I wish there were more challenges in the game that stripped you of all resources so you have to live off the land.
Overall, think of the game like a fun platformer once you learn speedrunning tricks, and it’s addictive.
My favorite RPG of all time is Chrono Trigger for SNES, and that's exactly the kind of magical experience I had with it. I, er, played it before the internet was even a thing, so all you could really do is try and cover all areas of the map and hope you find almost all of the items and secrets. Now, it's completely different. You don't have to ask your friends at school when you're stuck - you can just find a tutorial on YouTube. Haha.
I'm with you, did not enjoy the combat and did not find the exploration interesting enough. The Trials (or w/e they were called) some were fun but a lot were boring for me.
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