LogFAQs > #939199778

imthestuntman posted...

Yes, but I makes the game a relatively hollow experience. See something cool over the horizon and want to explore? It will either be a shrine or nothing. Repeat over and over.

There isn't depth to an experience when nothing can add or supplement the core experience. Games with a big open world and no meaningful content were something people had started growing weary of long before breath of the wild. And it isn't anything special in that regard beyond it's absurd level of polish and Zelda branding. That's not to say it's a bad game, it just isn't a particularly spectacular one once you see behind the curtain.

The fact that essentially all content is skippable without impacting the story is the games biggest weakness. It means that there is no motivation to really do anything beyond making your own fun. Which is fine, but sea of thieves and no man's sky aren't winning any awards for game of the century without a significant challenge.

So the question is, do the parts that aren't making your own fun add up to a meaningful enough experience? I would argue it is a resounding no, the only things differentiating it from the previously mentioned games it's absurd level of polish and it's Zelda branding.

Breath of the wild is fine. But it isn't anything special. It does nothing to advance the medium and is over all a worse game that both it's predecessors in the series and contemporaries in the open world genre.

It definitely has some advantages with its simplicity, but the game is certainly not for everyone.

I'm close to the 200 hour mark in the game, and all the time I've put into it I wouldn't say has magnified the experience too much. I'm just someone who is able to get enjoyment out of exploring every little corner.

I've been trying to think of ways to alter the game to increase enjoyment of exploration, and honestly, it's hard, because at its core, the shrines are the primary thing to seek out. Just like in any other Zelda, they are the floating heart pieces of the world. That's why quests will lead to them (whomever said some are just empty inside missed the point of shrine quests), or they'll have some small puzzle, or a fight. I mean, if you treat Shrines exclusively like heart pieces, there isn't a Zelda game that beats them in terms of what it asks you to do.

But that also leaves you with questions of what else is worth it. Finding Koroks totally is worth it. Boosting that inventory is part of the grind in overcoming the inventory system. And Koroks are everywhere, so again, you can do as much as you want to, and don't have to do near all of it to get the max. I GUESS you could replace koroks with just finding inventory upgrades, maybe even replacing hearts from shrines with inventory boosts and spread heart pieces around the world instead. But then you'd have people complaining that it's too hard to find heart pieces in the big world.

It's also interesting seeing speedrunners who specialize in other games saying BotW is their second favorite, but I guess you'd have to ask them to elaborate why that is.

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