Current Events > The first 3-20 hours of BotW are MAGICAL

(+) Yeah! (+)

Then it simply becomes a good game

<__>

Then it becomes annoying

My takeaway was practically the inverse. The early game suffers from imbalanced difficulty (either some red dude does scratch damage to you, or some blue dude shreds practically your entire health bar in one hit) and ridiculous levels of tedium from your weapons breaking in just a few swings, but from what I've seen of people playing the game in a much later state, these issues aren't nearly as noticeable.

thought the early game was boring hand holding filler. Then it was very okay throughout

Philip027 posted...

My takeaway was practically the inverse. The early game suffers from imbalanced difficulty (either some red dude does scratch damage to you, or some blue dude shreds practically your entire health bar in one hit) and ridiculous levels of tedium from your weapons breaking in just a few swings, but from what I've seen of people playing the game in a much later state, these issues aren't nearly as noticeable.

Even in late game I still feels this holds true. A Moblin hits you unguarded once and you lose 8-9 just hearts from that. Bonus if you take additional fall damage from the attack.

For me (again my view only):

0-6 Hours Fantastic game
6-20 Hours Ok game
20+ Hours Terrible game lol

Just never got into the meat of it really.

You guys are weird.

The Great Plateau and the next 20 or so hours (Kakariko/Hateno, first memories, first Divine Beast, etc.) after it all feel new and exciting, especially when watching other LPers.

It's when you start going for the second Divine Beast and onwards that everything starts feeling samey. Gerudo Town is probably the only real major standout.

When you're doing actual plot related stuff the game is great, random exploration is boring.

rock climbing minigame is my fave part of that game. i replayed it a bunch of times and got near a million rupees till i stopped. it like 15k rupees an hour or so.

pretty good game overall. i never beat it btw since by the time i even thought about going to the end game i felt burnt out. i did collect all the costumes which required doing all the shrines so i had experienced most of the game except for gannon.

Eab1990 posted...

It's when you start going for the second Divine Beast and onwards that everything starts feeling samey. Gerudo Town is probably the only real major standout.

I thought most of the quests leading to the beasts were pretty neat and unique. Except for Medoh. That was just "Here shoot five targets. Okay cool let's go." But even then, at least fighting it in the sky was neat. Naboris probably did have the most involved quest though.

it's raining again

Eh, some people don't like escorting Yunobo or w/e.

Also, I did forget to mention Korok Woods stuff as another standout.

But part of the problem with mid/late-game BotW is the lack of meaningful rewards from side quests. Stuff like getting your house, Ancient Arrows, Tarrow Town, or the stuff from Korok Woods is great and all, but mostly everything else just gives rupees, useless food, or more breakable weapons. The few that give armor sets are good, but a lot of the armor is also spread around random shrines with seemingly no real rhyme or reason.

Eab1990 posted...

Eh, some people don't like escorting Yunobo or w/e.

Also, I did forget to mention Korok Woods stuff as another standout.

But part of the problem with mid/late-game BotW is the lack of meaningful rewards from side quests. Stuff like getting your house, Ancient Arrows, Tarrow Town, or the stuff from Korok Woods is great and all, but mostly everything else just gives rupees, useless food, or more breakable weapons. The few that give armor sets are good, but a lot of the armor is also spread around random shrines with seemingly no real rhyme or reason.

Yeah sidequests are useless lol. "Can you bring me five bugs? Thanks, here's three mushrooms that you could have gathered more easily than the bugs." Uhh thanks.

The shrines were at least rewarding in the sense that they were fun to find and see and solve their gimmick. It was always disappointing when it was a Blessing or a Test of Strength though.

Also fuck everyone who hates on best boy Yunobo.

posting this again

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDOZGqsTCgw

I lost all my progress. I don't even have a switch.

It was okay. Had some highlights, but the overall design philosophy bogged it down a lot and made it feel drawn out while also feeling repetitive.

Same with Elden Ring. Except it's up to hour 50. Then the next 50 hours feel like it just keeps going and going and going.

Master_Kazuya posted...

Then it becomes annoying

^This

I tried it and found it really really boring. I was calling it Out Of Breath Of The Wild because most of it revolved around fixating on a depleting stamina circle and also feeling tired and bored like the game was reaching out of the screen and sapping your life force.

Philip027 posted...

My takeaway was practically the inverse. The early game suffers from imbalanced difficulty (either some red dude does scratch damage to you, or some blue dude shreds practically your entire health bar in one hit) and ridiculous levels of tedium from your weapons breaking in just a few swings, but from what I've seen of people playing the game in a much later state, these issues aren't nearly as noticeable.

The weapon durability was never a big deal to me, I don't see how people had trouble with it other than just the premise itself

ViewtifulJoe posted...

I was calling it Out Of Breath Of The Wild because most of it revolved around fixating on a depleting stamina circle

Lol, nice. That's a good one. I had similar feelings about it. Yeah, it was cool to be able to climb almost every surface in the game, but it was limited by a restrictive and tedious stamina system. The fact that you had to choose stamina OR hearts meant that it upgrade system wasn't satisfying, either. It should have been one of each per upgrade.

I was pretty hooked on it. Put 120 hours into it and did all of the shrines and side quests.

It does stop feeling incredible after a certain point, but every game I've ever played that lasts awhile is like that

The weapon durability was never a big deal to me, I don't see how people had trouble with it other than just the premise itself

You don't see how having to stop the action over and over on nearly every fight to take out a new stick or farming implement because your previous one shattered into a million pieces yet again (in a series where you previously almost never had to worry about that happening to your sword) might be tedious to some, especially at the start of the game where the weapons are at by far their weakest?

It's not like the Giant's Knife or Razor Sword in the N64 games either, where not only do the games emphasize that these are both meant to be temporary weapons to be replaced by a permanent version, even if you do decide to actually try to use them, they still last for way more hits than just about anything in BotW does.

Smackems posted...

The weapon durability was never a big deal to me, I don't see how people had trouble with it other than just the premise itself

For my part, I didn't have "trouble" with it, in the sense that it made the game harder... but it made me not want to use my weapons. For example, the fire and ice swords had minor temperature benefits. I always kept one of each in my inventory in case I needed them.

Which meant I had these awesome looking, badass magical swords which I never used as actual weapons because they would break into a thousand n pieces after like one battle, and then I would lose that secondary benefit until I trudged around to find another one.

It was obnoxious and made the "rewards" system of the game feel hollow and unfulfilling. Instead of getting more powerful weapons and shields for completing dungeons and finding collectibles... you just get more inventory slots to fill with temporary weapons made of paper mache.

The master sword was the only legitimately cool weapon in the game because it was unbreakable in dungeons. But then it breaks in the normal world and reminds you of how ridiculous the whole concept is. It's the ultimate weapon against evil but it's only good for like 15-20 swings every ten minutes.

It falls in that weird category, it's a lot like halo 2, where the first couple of hours is the game tricking you into thinking you're playing something truly amazing.

And then...there's no actual game to back up all the cool stuff you were introduced to . Like you just played a tech demo for something awesome and then you subtly transitioned into a shitty game

I actually agree. The plateau stuff is really strong and the initial openess of the main overworld also feels very cool but it becomes repetitive quickly.

yep... knew I'd see the day. i've been roasted alive on this site for saying botw is maybe not the best thing ever, but here we are... finally admitting the truth.

LinkDaLunatic posted...

yep... knew I'd see the day. i've been roasted alive on this site for saying botw is maybe not the best thing ever, but here we are... finally admitting the truth.

Some of us have always felt this way, but I think time has a way of clearing the "best game ever" fog in a way that makes flaws and tedium more apparent in hindsight.

Just look at Undertale lol

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


thats why i play on PC and give weapons 4x durability and give the master sword infinite durability.

Cobra1010 posted...

thats why i play on PC and give weapons 4x durability and give the master sword infinite durability.

Funny how this simple change would have made the game like 10x better

Cobra1010 posted...

thats why i play on PC and give weapons 4x durability and give the master sword infinite durability.

Honestly the weapon durability system should just have something akin to a difficulty slider. From paper thin (default) to indestructible.

So if you enjoy the durability system, more power to you, but if you don't, it's optional.

When I first started I accidentally ran into a major test of strength shrine, and literally couldn't kill the guardian-thing and it immediately set my game off poorly.

Like, you can see the shrine from the plateau, why would you make it one of the more difficult ones?

Proto_Spark posted...

When I first started I accidentally ran into a major test of strength shrine, and literally couldn't kill the guardian-thing and it immediately set my game off poorly.

Like, you can see the shrine from the plateau, why would you make it one of the more difficult ones?

It sets up a goal for the future, if nothing else, but tbh all you need to do to defeat any laser-spamming guardian is learn the parry timing with the shield. Guardians are cake after that.

I couldnt make it past the 10 hour mark

Considering you can go anywhere at any time, I don't really agree. Yes the Plateau is always going to be the first thing you do. But after that, you can basically do anything in any order. I know for me the mid to late game was spent in the Gerudo and Zora part of the story. Those sections completely blew away most of the stuff I had done prior.

Gobstoppers12 posted...

It sets up a goal for the future, if nothing else, but tbh all you need to do to defeat any laser-spamming guardian is learn the parry timing with the shield. Guardians are cake after that.

No it was some of the little ones with a weapon or two in the shrine that was causing trouble.

Its not so much they were difficult, so much as them being damn near impossible that early made me think the game would be largely gear-based or something like that, which pushed me to not actually explore all that much. After playing more it became obvious that wasn't the intention at all, but I was just off on the wrong foot because of it.

To me this is the purest Zelda experience since the NES game.
The game is completely open and you do whatever you want in whatever order (once you leave the plateau.)

You see a cool landmark in the distance then you can go to it. The world feels organic and not some trash Ubisoft open world which feels precerdurally generated at times. Everything location of the map feels unique and is hiding cool shit.

Gobstoppers12 posted...

Some of us have always felt this way, but I think time has a way of clearing the "best game ever" fog in a way that makes flaws and tedium more apparent in hindsight.

Just look at Undertale lol

Well, Undertale's definitely the exact opposite of BotW.

Like 75% of the first playthrough is cute/quirky, but not really outstanding or praiseworthy outside of its music.

Then the leadup to the normal ending gets bonkers and every subsequent playthrough adds new tidbits that really make the game feel alive.

Most people probably wouldn't even see stuff like Sans' room normally without looking up a guide, but the idea of save-scumming the Last Corridor to even get those interactions is crazy detailed.

I gave up around the ten hour mark because it wasn't meshing, and then came back to binge 90 hours a year later.

Gave up at the tower surrounded by alligators and wizards.