Current Events > Do some people seriously think Breath of the Wild is a generic open world game?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Why don't you go along and make sarcastic topics about Persona 5 like the sad fanboy you are.
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waahhh he doesnt love ninteenndooo

youre embarrassing yourself
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need more of these generic open world games that are apparently better than botw
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CookieMarvin posted...

bitter loser.

lightbulb is a bitter loser

yes

People who think it isn't generic and emtpy as fuck are Nintendo fanboys who have been missing out on open world games for the last couple generations.
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i love nintendrones reaction to people not praising nintendo games

never gets old

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-06-05-how-will-the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild-change-the-open-world-paradigm

Both Plich and Damien Monnier, senior designer on The Witcher 3 at CD Projekt RED and now lead designer at fellow Polish studio Techland, emphasised the independence Nintendo fosters in the game's players. "Breath of the Wild has managed to bring classic open world mechanics together while not relying on them to guide the player through its world," said Monnier. "You go and explore it because you wonder what's out there, not because a loot icon tells you to."

Plich concurs: "Breath of the Wild showed something most designers already know, but which is hard to achieve... [these games are] evolving from classic open worlds to an open-game model - open progression following each player's intrinsic motivations, adaptive challenge curve and economy, open narrative structures, and so on."

2
For Monnier, what is most striking about the game is the level of immersion the player has in its world. "My expectations, and I mean for me as a Zelda fan, have changed for sure - they've raised the bar when it comes to world crafting and this sense of total immersion I get when I play it," he said. "While its world includes classic open-world activities, collectibles and loot-filled mobs, it definitely doesn't feel overloaded and allows the focus be on the exploration. You want to explore this land whether or not you are on a quest, or being tasked to collect/gather something. You know, If you were to remove all NPCs, quests and mobs, I would still take pleasure in exploring that beautiful world."

The game's responsive environment and dialed-back use of 'gamey' elements such as map icons and collectibles are partly responsible for this. But immersion is a whole-game quality, and every aspect of Breath of the Wild's design has an impact on it. In particular, said Monnier, the layout of the game's landscape is highly effective. "[The designers use] smart placement of points of interest in the distance, that break the horizon. That includes intriguing natural formations. I find them inviting. Once you do reach one of these points you often feel a shift in the mood that makes you feel as if you have travelled further than you actually have; as if you have gone on a greater journey."

I suppose that being the senior designer of Witcher 3 doesn't mean he played it
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AlternativeFAQS posted...

i love nintendrones reaction to people not praising nintendo games

never gets old

I don't own a switch and I think you are a loser.

not sure i care about your opinion. going for 500 AMP before 2018 begins?

AlternativeFAQS posted...

i love nintendrones reaction to people not praising nintendo games

never gets old

Literally coming in here salty because it's a topic about it not being a generic open world game.

You're literally the guy who threw a tantrum because I pointed out that Cuphead was also on PC.

You've spent the last month defending a game being 20fps on the world's most powerful console.
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AlternativeFAQS posted...

i love nintendrones reaction to people not praising nintendo games

never gets old

you literally came into this topic to throw a tantrum lol
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ok I swear I didnt read that post before I typed that tantrum shit
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AlternativeFAQS posted...

aaaannnd im arguing with someone who's had an account for 15 years. not sure how i never noticed that
but yeah once you revert to making shit up there's really nothing more to be said

Yeah nobody here notices that you're the resident Xbox fanboy. It's not obvious at all. Nope.
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What are some examples of generic open world games?

Another day another Darmik shill topic.
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JustMonika posted...

Another day another Darmik shill topic.

Wow a user talks about his favorite game of the year instead of shitposting about games he hasn't played and will never play? What a baffling concept.
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Darmik posted...

JustMonika posted...

Another day another Darmik shill topic.

Wow a user talks about his favorite game of the year instead of shitposting about games he hasn't played and will never play? What a baffling concept.

and people who say it's generic (which it obviously is) are simply throwing tantrums!

AlternativeFAQS posted...

Darmik posted...

JustMonika posted...

Another day another Darmik shill topic.

Wow a user talks about his favorite game of the year instead of shitposting about games he hasn't played and will never play? What a baffling concept.

and people who say it's generic (which it obviously is) are simply throwing tantrums!

Who needs to talk about the several posts I have made about the gameplay in this topic when you can skim a video and whine about Nintendo bias.
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Only thing is I would not put the word Breath on my game.
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People call it a generic open world game because it is. It's got a neat gimmick where you can go to the final boss fight at anytime, but it still mostly shakes out into the same basic gameplay loops as most open world games. Which is chasing points of interest on the map, grinding out whatever collectibles or challenges give you whatever marginal stat boosts you're looking for, occasionally stopping for a genericised fetch quest then rinse and repeat until you get bored and feel like following the main narrative breadcrumbs again. None of its hooks, the mobility, the crafting, the "emergent gameplay" are things that haven't been done before or better in other games.
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Frolex posted...

It's got a neat gimmick where you can go to the final boss fight at anytime, but it still mostly shakes out into the same basic gameplay loops as most open world games.

The 'gimmick' isn't restricted to the final boss. It's everything.

IIRC the only things you need to unlock are;
- Gaining access to the divine beasts
- The final memory

That's it. You can access everything else from the start if you wanted.

Frolex posted...

Which is chasing points of interest on the map, grinding out whatever collectibles or challenges give you whatever marginal stat boosts you're looking for, occasionally stopping for a genericised fetch quest then rinse and repeat until you get bored and feel like following the main narrative breadcrumbs again.

What points of interest on the map are you talking about? The far majority of the stuff I found were spotted from the towers. Outside of that I only remember Kakariko Village and the Divine Beasts appearing on the map. Would you even call those breadcrumbs?

Frolex posted...

None of its hooks, the mobility, the crafting, the "emergent gameplay" are things that haven't been done before or better in other games.

No specific thing hasn't been done elsewhere. But I can't think of a game that has combined all of these elements in this way.

It reminds me of Halo CE in that aspect. Nothing specific in that game was new. But the way they combined it all was.
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It's boring
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Darmik posted...

The 'gimmick' isn't restricted to the final boss. It's everything.

IIRC the only things you need to unlock are;
- Gaining access to the divine beasts
- The final memory

That's it. You can access everything else from the start if you wanted.

Right, but like I said, unless you're going out of your way to skip most of the games content, the game design has the same basic flow as most open world games do.

Darmik posted...

What points of interest on the map are you talking about? The far majority of the stuff I found were spotted from the towers. Outside of that I only remember Kakariko Village and the Divine Beasts appearing on the map. Would you even call those breadcrumbs?

I'm talking about stuff like shrines, korok seeds dragons; whatever generic source of collectible you happen be in the near vicinity of. It's a game of scraping the game world for fluff until you get bored of it.

No specific thing hasn't been done elsewhere. But I can't think of a game that has combined all of these elements in this way.

It reminds me of Halo CE in that aspect. Nothing specific in that game was new. But the way they combined it all was.

Sure, I can definitely tell it has a lot more passion and less cynicsim behind it than something like original WatchUnderscoreDogs, but there's nothing about it that makes me think it's broken new ground and paved the way for a creative renaissance in the open world genre.
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Frolex posted...

People call it a generic open world game because it is. It's got a neat gimmick where you can go to the final boss fight at anytime, but it still mostly shakes out into the same basic gameplay loops as most open world games. Which is chasing points of interest on the map, grinding out whatever collectibles or challenges give you whatever marginal stat boosts you're looking for, occasionally stopping for a genericised fetch quest then rinse and repeat until you get bored and feel like following the main narrative breadcrumbs again. None of its hooks, the mobility, the crafting, the "emergent gameplay" are things that haven't been done before or better in other games.

Absolutely nailed it.
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Frolex posted...

Right, but like I said, unless you're going out of your way to skip most of the games content, the game design has the same basic flow as most open world games do.

I honestly don't see it. I can't think of any open world game that has 5 destinations as objectives and nothing else. I suppose there's also the memories to get the better ending. Pretty much all of them have a scripted main quest that takes you all across the world. You generally bounce between the main characters who give you missions. Usually you are given objects or keys that unlock specific main quest dungeons or levels. BOTW avoids all of that.

Frolex posted...

I'm talking about stuff like shrines, korok seeds dragons; whatever generic source of collectible you happen be in the near vicinity of. It's a game of scraping the game world for fluff until you get bored of it.

Even that has a unique twist.

Generally a collectable is just something you find in the world to collect.
Shrines are mini-dungeons that glow from a distance. That's probably the most plain sort of objective. Similar to a dungeon in Skyrim. But they're never tied to a story mission. If you find them you can do them
Korok seeds are numerous. But they're mini-puzzles. If there's a weird circle of rocks you plop a rock down to find one. Or you shoot an arrow. Stuff like that. These do recycle but I don't think the game intends for you to collect all of them. Hell some people manage to beat the game without even finding the guy you give the Korok seeds to. These players don't even know what they unlock
Dragons are huge beasts that travel the world. You can stumble on one. It's not really a collectable. They're just a part of the world. You can shoot them for a scale. I don't think the game even prompts you to do that.

That's about it. Outside of that you can destroy enemy settlements for weapons. Or just look for treasure chests. But you don't have to. There's no real checklist for you to follow.

Frolex posted...

Sure, I can definitely tell it has a lot more passion and less cynicsim behind it than something like original WatchUnderscoreDogs, but there's nothing about it that makes me think it's broken new ground and paved the way for a creative renaissance in the open world genre.

I'm not saying it's gonna be a renaissance. But I hope developers do take elements from it for sure. Similar to how major FPS games influenced the genre.

Take GTA for example. Wouldn't it be cool if you could just..rob the bank whenever you wanted? Why wait for a story mission? If you present possibilities to the player they will try it. That's the kind of mindset I'd like to see more of in open world games.

That doesn't mean I want GTA to be an open world game with a story solely told through flashbacks. But that's a specific element that could be really cool to do. GTA as a series has actually gone more linear and scripted as time goes on.
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shrines are one of the most disappointing things about botw

they are not mini-dungeons, they are single-room puzzles and about 70% of them are completely worthless
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Darmik posted...

I honestly don't see it. I can't think of any open world game that has 5 destinations as objectives and nothing else. I suppose there's also the memories to get the better ending. Pretty much all of them have a scripted main quest that takes you all across the world. You generally bounce between the main characters who give you missions. Usually you are given objects or keys that unlock specific main quest dungeons or levels. BOTW avoids all of that.

I mean, most of bethesda's open world games let you get to the credits about as fast as you can in breath of the wild.

Even that has a unique twist.

Generally a collectable is just something you find in the world to collect.
Shrines are mini-dungeons that glow from a distance. That's probably the most plain sort of objective. Similar to a dungeon in Skyrim. But they're never tied to a story mission. If you find them you can do them
Korok seeds are numerous. But they're mini-puzzles. If there's a weird circle of rocks you plop a rock down to find one. Or you shoot an arrow. Stuff like that. These do recycle but I don't think the game intends for you to collect all of them. Hell some people manage to beat the game without even finding the guy you give the Korok seeds to. These players don't even know what they unlock
Dragons are huge beasts that travel the world. You can stumble on one. It's not really a collectable. They're just a part of the world. You can shoot them for a scale. I don't think the game even prompts you to do that.

That's about it. Outside of that you can destroy enemy settlements for weapons. Or just look for treasure chests. But you don't have to. There's no real checklist for you to follow.

The collectibles in most open world games usually have some sort of gimmick or puzzle attached to them too. The point is, there's not really many individual pieces of content or quests in the game that are truly memorable. Even the major dungeons recycle a surprising amount of content and environments between them, which is something I wasn't really expecting from a zelda game

I'm not saying it's gonna be a renaissance. But I hope developers do take elements from it for sure. Similar to how major FPS games influenced the genre.

Take GTA for example. Wouldn't it be cool if you could just..rob the bank whenever you wanted?

Not really, to be honest. The heist missions in GTA 5 are far more interesting and memoreable than any of the open ended stuff they did for Online. And sure, a big part of that is they've been turning the game into a F2P grind, but even the heavily scripted online heist mission chains are the best part of the multiplayer by far. That's the main problem i have with the open world genre. The wider scale your game is, the less focus you can put on the individual pieces of the game.
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Darmik posted...

I honestly don't see it. I can't think of any open world game that has 5 destinations as objectives and nothing else. I suppose there's also the memories to get the better ending. Pretty much all of them have a scripted main quest that takes you all across the world. You generally bounce between the main characters who give you missions. Usually you are given objects or keys that unlock specific main quest dungeons or levels. BOTW avoids all of that.

The flow of an open world game is that you are guided to a destination, you complete the curated activity within that location and are advanced towards the resolution of the game. What BOTW has done is managed to hide the questgiver by giving you a tower you need to climb (you can choose not to, but I don't think you'll have much fun with a completely black map and no ability to track what you've done), which highlights some obvious nodes for you to check out, and then you go do them. That's the basic flow of all open world games. Just because you have a choice to do them or not doesn't even factor into the equation, because unless you're just that good to go fight Ganon at the start of the game (in which case you just ignored 99.9% of the game, good job, solid purchase and/or nice speedrun),you are very obviously guided to what you need to do. I'd be more apt to believe you that the game was truly open if it didn't give you massive structures readily visible from practically any location. You are told from the start by Rhoam that going to these towers to spot shrines is a thing you should do, then cuts out the repeated dialogue from there.
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Darmik posted...

AlternativeFAQS posted...

aaaannnd im arguing with someone who's had an account for 15 years. not sure how i never noticed that
but yeah once you revert to making shit up there's really nothing more to be said

Yeah nobody here notices that you're the resident Xbox fanboy. It's not obvious at all. Nope.

And everyone here knows you're the resident Nintendick sucker.
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Frolex posted...

I mean, most of bethesda's open world games let you get to the credits about as fast as you can in breath of the wild.

Intentionally?

Frolex posted...

The collectibles in most open world games usually have some sort of gimmick or puzzle attached to them too. The point is, there's not really many individual pieces of content or quests in the game that are truly memorable. Even the major dungeons recycle a surprising amount of content and environments between them, which is something I wasn't really expecting from a zelda game

Like what? I don't recall puzzles being needed to find pigeons, flags or orbs.

To me the exploring the overworld and discovering stuff on my own is what made it memorable. Finding my first dragon. Trying to light all of the torches for that professor guy only to be hindered by rain. Solving those riddles that revealrd shrines. Climbing and surfing down mountains. Shit like that.

Frolex posted...

Not really, to be honest. The heist missions in GTA 5 are far more interesting and memoreable than any of the open ended stuff they did for Online. And sure, a big part of that is they've been turning the game into a F2P grind, but even the heavily scripted online heist mission chains are the best part of the multiplayer by far. That's the main problem i have with the open world genre. The wider scale your game is, the less focus you can put on the individual pieces of the game.

To each their own. I want more freedom in these games after BOTW. I don't want to encounter walls I can't climb anymore.

UrCa1988 posted...

The flow of an open world game is that you are guided to a destination, you complete the curated activity within that location and are advanced towards the resolution of the game. What BOTW has done is managed to hide the questgiver by giving you a tower you need to climb (you can choose not to, but I don't think you'll have much fun with a completely black map and no ability to track what you've done), which highlights some obvious nodes for you to check out, and then you go do them. That's the basic flow of all open world games. Just because you have a choice to do them or not doesn't even factor into the equation, because unless you're just that good to go fight Ganon at the start of the game (in which case you just ignored 99.9% of the game, good job, solid purchase and/or nice speedrun),you are very obviously guided to what you need to do. I'd be more apt to believe you that the game was truly open if it didn't give you massive structures readily visible from practically any location. You are told from the start by Rhoam that going to these towers to spot shrines is a thing you should do, then cuts out the repeated dialogue from there

The simple change of having the world guide you is what makes it a game changer for me.

I adore the Witcher 3. But following the major landmarks leads to nothing because they're saved for story missions. I remember taking the time to see what this huge ass tower was in the distance. Turns out it only had a locked door. I figured that it's gonna be a story mission and sure enough it popped up later.

As I said it's the way BOTW combined these elements that make it stand out for me personally. Having the environment guide you is generally only a thing I see in linear games. You know exactly where the endgame is for the entirety of BOTW.

I know there are exceptions. Fallout often has landmark buildings that lead to side quests. But you never truly know until you get there.
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Darmik posted...

Intentionally?

Sure. You can walk into the casino in new vegas, pop benny in the face and then tell yes man the mojave factions aren't worth wasting your time over, for instance

Like what? I don't recall puzzles being needed to find pigeons, flags or orbs.

To me the exploring the overworld and discovering stuff on my own is what made it memorable. Finding my first dragon. Trying to light all of the torches for that professor guy only to be hindered by rain. Solving those riddles that revealrd shrines. Climbing and surfing down mountains. Shit like that.

Stuff like platforming puzzles for radio towers or hacking or whatever the gimmick dujour is in the individual ubisoft open world game of the month. It's all fun the first few times you do it, then the next 50 hours are spent repeating the same loops over and over with slight variations in location/

To each their own. I want more freedom in these games after BOTW. I don't want to encounter walls I can't climb anymore.

I guess so. I just care more about unique, well crafted stories and quests than I do about some fascination with "see that mountain? you can climb it".
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soulunison2 posted...

Darmik posted...

soulunison2 posted...

Darmik posted...

soulunison2 posted...

Its literally a generic open world game

Source - I beat it

Which open world game is it most similar to?

Farcry

Far Cry 2 had some similar elements but that's about it.

Id one up you and say Just Cause 2/3 did this concept much better than Zelda

The hookshot in just Cause is amazing

Shrines are just another glorified collectathon, id rather more dungeons than 100 + shrines

I agree with this last bit. Should have been like 60 shrines and 4 actual dungeons.
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Darmik posted...

The simple change of having the world guide you is what makes it a game changer for me.

It's the same deal with Assassin's Creed where you go up a tower and the points of interest are marked on your map, minus the marking. It's nothing special and only feels novel because you have to mark things yourself. BOTW manages to get away with it by making the points of interest the most jarringly different thing in the landscape and the only thing not affected by draw distance. AC Origins had a nice middle ground for quests where you weren't immediately aware of where your goal was other than a rough location you were pointed to and you had to use the bird to scout from afar or get close enough yourself to determine where you needed to go.

Darmik posted...

I adore the Witcher 3. But following the major landmarks leads to nothing because they're saved for story missions. I remember taking the time to see what this huge ass tower was in the distance. Turns out it only had a locked door. I figured that it's gonna be a story mission and sure enough it popped up later.

I'll concede that, it sucks when parts of the game are arbitrarily locked for no reason other than "you can only visit this after the story checkpoint," but this is also uncommon. I can't even think of an area you couldn't go to from the beginning of Origins with the only actual gates being enemies that are way too high level for you. They even took a page from BOTW and let you scale mountains, the only things you really couldn't climb are pretty much completely sheer walls that it wouldn't make sense for you to be able to.
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Frolex posted...

Sure. You can walk into the casino in new vegas, pop benny in the face and then tell yes man the mojave factions aren't worth wasting your time over, for instance

I praise New Vegas for completely different reasons. That game gives a freedom over how you proceed over the narrative. I praised Fallout 1 and 2 in the OP because it did something similar. Obsidian followed that path though. Not Bethesda.

I wouldn't call New Vegas a generic open world game either.

Frolex posted...

Stuff like platforming puzzles for radio towers or hacking or whatever the gimmick dujour is in the individual ubisoft open world game of the month. It's all fun the first few times you do it, then the next 50 hours are spent repeating the same loops over and over with slight variations in location/

Eh those are more like traditional open world side missions to me.

Frolex posted...

I guess so. I just care more about unique, well crafted stories and quests than I do about some fascination with "see that mountain? you can climb it".

There's room for both. I totally get why someone would prefer The Witcher 3 over Breath of the Wild.

I like that they both moved away from 'checklist open world design' in totally different ways.

Witcher 3 did it by giving story context for all of the side content. They tried to make each story unique. They connected a lot of the side quests. There were ? Waypoints on the map but they were of no consequence and just had shitty weapons.

BOTW did it by placing everything on the world to discover on your own and designing the world through visual landmarks instead of waypoints.

To me something like Watch Dogs is a generic open world game. It just followed the structure set by the genre and did nothing new with it.
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soulunison2 posted...

I went into Gannon with level 4 armor and two pieced him and tanked him because I was way too overprepared and the game never told me to slow down.

This pretty well illustrates that BotW was never meant to be a game geared for you.
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Frolex posted...

People call it a generic open world game because it is. It's got a neat gimmick where you can go to the final boss fight at anytime, but it still mostly shakes out into the same basic gameplay loops as most open world games. Which is chasing points of interest on the map, grinding out whatever collectibles or challenges give you whatever marginal stat boosts you're looking for, occasionally stopping for a genericised fetch quest then rinse and repeat until you get bored and feel like following the main narrative breadcrumbs again. None of its hooks, the mobility, the crafting, the "emergent gameplay" are things that haven't been done before or better in other games.

Pretty much. It was nothing special and got horribly repetitive and boring after the first 10 hours. With very little story content, I found myself just doing shrine after shrine. The 4 dungeons are one of the most embarrassing things I've seen in video games.
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I haven't played Origins yet. It sounds like it does a lot similar which is great.

The open world genre is probably one of the most reactive in the industry. In this decade alone Skyrim, Minecraft and The Witcher 3 have influenced several titles in the genre already. The Witcher 3 only came out a couple of years ago. I just believe that BOTW will be another one that will influence developers down the line and that's exciting. Generic games don't influence.
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Its hard to please everybody
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Darmik posted...

I praise New Vegas for completely different reasons. That game gives a freedom over how you proceed over the narrative. I praised Fallout 1 and 2 in the OP because it did something similar. Obsidian followed that path though. Not Bethesda.

I wouldn't call New Vegas a generic open world game either.

Fair enough, but my point was that there's nothing truly novel about BoTW's game design.

Eh those are more like traditional open world side missions to me.

Either way, it boils down to creating gameplay loops that can be easily propagated in reptition over the entire scope of the game worldDarmik posted...

There's room for both. I totally get why someone would prefer The Witcher 3 over Breath of the Wild.

I like that they both moved away from 'checklist open world design' in totally different ways.

Witcher 3 did it by giving story context for all of the side content. They tried to make each story unique. They connected a lot of the side quests. There were ? Waypoints on the map but they were of no consequence and just had shitty weapons.

BOTW did it by placing everything on the world to discover on your own and designing the world through visual landmarks instead of waypoints.

To me something like Watch Dogs is a generic open world game. It just followed the structure set by the genre and did nothing new with it.

But it's always a tradeoff. The more content you have that the player is likely to miss, and the more open you make the content the less you can make that content stand out from each other. The way BoTW interprets the formula by driving players through the open world content by highlighting landmarks is an interesting one, but that's all it is; one slight variation of the formula.
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I mean, people can try to call TC a shill, but hes providing pretty strong analysis and OVERWHELMING popular opinion agrees with him, so its a little insane to try to take the stance that BotW is objectively dull or brings nothing new to the table. That is straight-up silly.

That said, it can be not for you and thats cool. Ill admit I hope they can do more traditional dungeons next time around, but what some people found repetitive, others found a game almost as limitless as your imagination. Some people want more structure and thats cool. I dont mind that the majority of the game is okay go wander around and do stuff. I love the shit out of that and the game engine.
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Frolex posted...

But it's always a tradeoff. The more content you have that the player is likely to miss, and the more open you make the content the less you can make that content stand out from each other. The way BoTW interprets the formula by driving players through the open world content by highlighting landmarks is an interesting one, but that's all it is; one slight variation of the formula.

And sometimes it takes the slightest variation to make the biggest impact. The climbing mechanics alone is a huge variation. Totally won't surprise me if we get an ability stat in Elder Scrolls that lets you climb everything now.

All Halo did was do slight variations to the FPS formula and it was hugely influential and innovative.

Mr_Biscuit posted...

That said, it can be not for you and thats cool. Ill admit I hope they can do more traditional dungeons next time around, but what some people found repetitive, others found a game almost as limitless as your imagination. Some people want more structure and thats cool. I dont mind that the majority of the game is okay go wander around and do stuff. I love the s*** out of that and the game engine.

Well said. As I said I totally understand why BOTW isn't for everyone.

I just don't understand how anyone could consider it generic.
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Mr_Biscuit posted...

I mean, people can try to call TC a shill, but hes providing pretty strong analysis and OVERWHELMING popular opinion agrees with him, so its a little insane to try to take the stance that BotW is objectively dull or brings nothing new to the table. That is straight-up silly.

There have been multiple posts in a row proving this wrong.
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Darmik posted...

And sometimes it takes the slightest variation to make the biggest impact. The climbing mechanics alone is a huge variation. Totally won't surprise me if we get an ability stat in Elder Scrolls that lets you climb everything now.

All Halo did was do slight variations to the FPS formula and it was hugely influential and innovative.

I mean, even the climbing mechanics were already pretty heavily lifted from other games like Assassin's Creed. And halo wasn't released at a time when there was a console sci-fi action shooter being released on a seemingly monthly basis. The point is, there's nothing about BotW that takes me by surprise in a way that another open world game released in the past five years couldn't.
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Handwaving BotWs physics engine and what it allows for overcoming obstacles in terms of if you think to try it, it will probably work as simple alterations of a formula or been-there-done-that is incredibly lazy and the kind of thinking that would indicate nothing has ever been innovative.

Its shit like...
-how throwing a rusty weapon at an octorok will result in them spitting it back out clean
-you can stay warm in a zillion different logical ways in freezing environments
-some enemies can catch boomerangs and throw them back at you
-bomb arrows fizzling out in the rain, metal weapons conducting electricity in the rain
-lightning arrows fired into water killing all marine life
-tricking enemies into hitting cuccos so they attack them instead
-moving rafts via leaf or via magnesis by pushing metal objects against the boat

Its the they thought of everything factor that makes BotW unique.
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I mean, seriously. Are we really at the point of arguing that BotWs ability to climb virtually any mountain or surface in the game doesnt matter because Assassins Creed also features climbing things?
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Mr_Biscuit posted...

I mean, seriously. Are we really, for example, at the point of arguing that BotWs ability to climb virtually any mountain or surface in the game is yawn, whatever because Assassins Creed also features climbing things?

Never mind that AC allowing you to climb specific structures built with handholds and Zelda allowing you to climb any mountain from any angle are entirely different concepts. Theyre both climbing, so whatever!

Its a little absurd.

It's a little absurd that the number one defence of this mediocre game is constantly "but you can like, totally climb everything!"
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there's also the issue of combat and lacking unique enemy types

botw has great movement and means to traverse its world but fighting most things isn't very fun
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That isnt my #1 defense of the game, it was a direct reply to the guy saying the climbing was nothing new because AC has climbing.

You ignored the rest of the stuff I posted about the engine and such, though, so thats cool.

Edit: directed at Red Tomato
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Delirious_Beard posted...

there's also the issue of combat and lacking unique enemy types

botw has great movement and means to traverse its world but fighting most things isn't very fun

Sure. If Im criticizing BotW, Id go:

-needs more dungeons and those dungeons need to be more varied
-needs more enemy types
-I miss some Zelda tools like the hookshot
-clearing enemy camps isnt often worthwhile enough

What I would NOT go for is:

-its just another open world game, brings nothing new to the table, feels like Ive played it all before

because that shit just aint true, by sheer force of the engine alone.

What makes BotW great IS the capacity to explore, both literally in terms of exploring Hyrule, and in terms of exploring what makes the game tick what crazy thing that you cant believe they actually thought of will you accidentally or experimentally stumble upon next?

If thats not your bag, thats cool. Calling the game mediocre is just extremely tryhard, though.
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