Current Events > Zelda BotW.. is just an ok game to me. (anyone else feel that way)

(+) Yeah! (+)

I don't like calling things overrated since everyone has their own standards. But I have put a lot of time in this game and now I am thinking that is just ok to meh.
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nintendos first open world game

Its definitely just ok but youll have so many nintendrones chew your ear off with how its now a golden standard

Astounding first impression I got from it, but just from exploring and doing Kakariko + finding Hateno I already kind of have fatigue. No matter where you go the formula seems the same which is a little boring. Reminds me of MGSV in a lot of ways.
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I think it does a lot of things right, but I'm looking forward to a polished sequel.
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After about 50 hours I dropped it and felt a bit let down.

Recently picked it back up and I'm coming around to it a bit more.

I think its a good game, but not really a Zelda game. Which I'm fine with now after thinking about it a bit. Just wish there were more dungeons to explore.
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the concept is really cool but I found it be rather boring once you have the first few "oh shit I can actually do this" moments while exploring
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Jesus is just alright with me.

While I'm certainly not going to preach to someone about my opinion, this is the first game since FF7 I have dumped as much time into as I have and enjoyed every minute of it. I have done all (including DLC) on normal and master mode but Sword Trail (started it on normal) and all seeds. I think I have like 200 or so on normal and 450 some on master mode. It's really the game I spent most of last year playing. While I am going to start playing other games I own, I might still start a new game and play it in the background, so to speak.

Because something about this game really speaks to me. I think it's the game I can just waste time with doing nothing. I don't have the dedication or desire to push myself for challenges all the time. I guess I'm a filthy casual finally, and enjoy the experience of games more so than challenges. Though I do like some. And BotW has those too.
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I've only played a couple of hours, but it's cool by me.

Thanks for everyone's POV.

thanosibe posted...

Because something about this game really speaks to me. I think it's the game I can just waste time with doing nothing. I don't have the dedication or desire to push myself for challenges all the time. I guess I'm a filthy casual finally, and enjoy the experience of games more so than challenges. Though I do like some. And BotW has those too.

For m, the game I like to do nothing is Skyrim and with many of the mods out there it feels more alive to me( and my nice weapons don't break lol).
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cjsdowg posted...

Thanks for everyone's POV.

thanosibe posted...

Because something about this game really speaks to me. I think it's the game I can just waste time with doing nothing. I don't have the dedication or desire to push myself for challenges all the time. I guess I'm a filthy casual finally, and enjoy the experience of games more so than challenges. Though I do like some. And BotW has those too.

For m, the game I like to do nothing is Skyrim and with many of the mods out there it feels more alive to me( and my nice weapons don't break lol).

My son feels that way too. He's spent way more time on Skyrim than he did BotW. And wants it on the Switch now too. Whereas Skyrim never really appealed to me despite the games being somewhat similar.

On the subject of open world games, though, I am quite tempted to get Witcher 3 soon, from all the good things I hear about it.
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If your son loves when a game he likes is made portable, you may be able to get him into older games by getting a Sega Nomad.

I enjoyed BotW more than most, if not all other, open world games I've played. Granted, I'm only something like 10 hrs into it and that's about as much time I spend on open world games anyway.
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It is odd the time I spent in it have not liked that much, but keep going back to the finish everything . I can't explain it. Most times when I 100% a game, I love ever second of it. However I jsut keep going back to BotW because there is still left to do.
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just like FFXV i think it took the open world thing way too far.

way too much real estate coupled with directionless exploration and experimentation just make for a game that wear out its welcome way sooner than later since you can easily spend a full gaming session not getting any real progress.

i think the best way to play the game for people with less time is follow main quests and only engage side quests with a guide in hand so you know exactly what to do since there's next to nothing that actually seem to develop the world or characters compared to something like witcher 3's quests where mindless exploration ends up feeling way more satisfying due to how the game was designed.
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TheGrindery posted...

If your son loves when a game he likes is made portable, you may be able to get him into older games by getting a Sega Nomad.

Well both my boys like the mobile aspect of the Switch. And my youngest uses his N3DSXL a lot. But I have no idea what a Sega Nomad is, but will check it out.
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AsucaHayashi posted...

way too much real estate coupled with directionless exploration and experimentation just make for a game that wear out its welcome way sooner than later since you can easily spend a full gaming session not getting any real progress.

I dunno I really like that they went back to the roots of Zelda 1 with this. Essentially I just wish that they'd condensed more shrines into actual dungeons. Also, the world is really big which is cool, but I'd love it if they put more varied content instead of what's there now. Oh and tweaks to stuff like item durabilities are in order, and maybe add back some comfort items like boomerang or hookshot or something. But definitely put them early so you don't gate areas with progression items.

The open worldiness and directionlessness is perfect, though.
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thanosibe posted...

TheGrindery posted...

If your son loves when a game he likes is made portable, you may be able to get him into older games by getting a Sega Nomad.

Well both my boys like the mobile aspect of the Switch. And my youngest uses his N3DSXL a lot. But I have no idea what a Sega Nomad is, but will check it out.

It plays saga games from the 16 bit era.
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TC, which Zelda did you grow up on?
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CapnMuffin posted...

TC, which Zelda did you grow up on?

LttP was my first Zelda game.
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Ive openly called it mediocre since release.
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cjsdowg posted...

thanosibe posted...

TheGrindery posted...

If your son loves when a game he likes is made portable, you may be able to get him into older games by getting a Sega Nomad.

Well both my boys like the mobile aspect of the Switch. And my youngest uses his N3DSXL a lot. But I have no idea what a Sega Nomad is, but will check it out.

It plays saga games from the 16 bit era.

Oh ok. My youngest might like that. He's a big Sonic fan now. I bought him the Genesis collection on the 360. But he'd liked the mobile part of it.
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Imo, it's a great game and was definitely refreshing after SS and the DS Zeldas. A Link Between Worlds was also phenomenal though. Did BotW deserve all the praise it got? I think so. Especially with how poorly Sony and Microsoft have been doing with making legit pure fun games.
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The only thing I can't stand if the weapon breaking system.

I want to slaughter hordes of enemies without worrying I'm going to lose the weapons I like.

That's my biggest gripe.
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Smashingpmkns posted...

Did BotW deserve all the praise it got? I think so. Especially with how poorly Sony and Microsoft have been doing with making legit pure fun games.

Other companies putting out what you perceive to be as bad games doesn't make a game Nintendo puts out better or worse, wtf.
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I like but definitely don't love it so far
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I thought it was good but I got bored of the same thing after a while. Never finished it and I consider Zelda to be my favorite video game franchise.
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AlternativeFAQS posted...

nintendos first open world game

...was back in 1986.

Questionmarktarius posted...

AlternativeFAQS posted...

nintendos first open world game

...was back in 1986.

Wasn't the original Zelda considered open world?
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The game is great and I hope the sequel uses the mechanics from this game as a base and has a smaller but more compact world to explore.
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AlternativeFAQS posted...

nintendos first open world game

Welcome to 2003 nintendo kids.
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Same, it's nowhere near as good as HZD.
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Calling the first Zelda "an open world game" is a little disingenuous because it actually doesn't have much in common with the actual genre as it exists today. It was the general idea of one, but a true open world game couldn't exist back then.

Anyway, I don't like Nintendo much, but I'd say BotW is an extremely impressive, very good game. It's probably the best Zelda game overall, and as an open world sandbox game, it's also pretty impressive.

Open world sandbox games is probably my overall favorite genre, or at least tied. I've played many of them, and yet BotW does surprise and impress me because for one, it shows Nintendo paid a lot of attention to what other games did, evolved and learned and implemented some of those things and that's very un-Nintendo.

BotW basically manages to reinvent the series while going well out of Nintendo's comfort zone but handling it ultimately pretty well and despite how different it is from what became known as a standard Zelda game, it does not feel like it doesn't belong in the series, because as was alluded to, it still is, overall, in the "spirit" of the original game.

As an open world third person hack and slash style adventure...sandbox game, it actually has a lot of well-crafted mechanics and design to how things are laid out, and even takes concepts found in other open world games and does them better. Koroks for example are basically your standard Hidden Package deal, some little thing sprinkled throughout the world to reward you with something for wandering around. However, unlike something like Hidden Packages, firstly you don't need to find them all. Nowhere close, which removes all sense of frustration and tedium. Allowing them to just be a nice bonus as you travel. Secondly, you don't simply pick these items up but instead have to spot little environmental puzzles to solve, or just environmental things to activate, or little minigames. Just all sorts of stuff that invites you to observe and interact with the world, which is a very smart way to go about the system. It's probably the best version of this mechanic in an open world game, at least of the ones I've played.

The game design is also well focused on establishing various basic/core mechanics/rules, and then from that sprouting a lot of sub-functions in how they can be used, manipulated, combined, etc. Some of it has little value save for goofing off (like octo balloons for the most part) while others have significant implications (how the world handles electricity in various ways). All of this and the fleshed out physics of the game create this freeform style of gameplay, how you engage with the world at all times, that makes it feel better connected, not just like you're a floating hitbox imitating a person who goes around triggering flags in a fake world.

Does it get repetitive eventually? Yes. That's the nature of the beast of this genre, though it does a decent job of staving it off (could be a lot better though...enemy variety is not great, for instance).

Speaking of shortcomings: the DLC is pretty bad. It's not much new content. It's more like remixes and rehashes. And all the little bits and bobs via scavenger hunts you can get can't be upgraded, making them early game curiosities at best whilst many of them not being very feasible to even locate early game (most offending being the royal guard set). Like, I get that not all DLC is equal, but compared to something like Skyrim, or a Souls game, or Borderlands or The Witcher 3... The Champions Ballad and Master Trial are pretty lackluster with very little new to offer. Neither are bad in the sense that it'd be better if they didn't exist, but my expectations based off other games I play is that like, I wanted new areas, enemies, weapons...a lot of new stuff. Now I have more criticisms (but make no mistake, I think highly of the game...I'm just extra critical of games I like a lot) but I'm out of room.
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So other problems:

The game's lock-on is shit. I think this is the lock-on functionality cave paintings had that cavemen designed, it's so archaic. Is it even changed at all from how it was in OoT?

Compared to what you get in a game like Dark Souls/Nioh, it doesn't even really seem like it deserves to be called "lock-on"

In Dark Souls, you click the right joystick, and it locks on to an enemy. You then move that stick to change to other targets relative to the direction you moved it to. The camera focuses on the enemy. In BotW, you have to HOLD the button, to change targets, you let off then hold again and it chooses a new random one, and the real kicker: it doesn't focus the camera! You have to manually move the camera yourself, constantly, while "locked on". This further is harmed by the fact your ability to dodge works on Tales of rules, meaning you have to recognise the type of attack coming and either dodge back, or to the side, to dodge it properly. But since the camera doesn't focus, what constitutes moving yourself "back" or to the side can be disoriented due to the perspective, making it just...clunky and wholly inferior to games with superior systems.

The game in general controls badly. To an extent I'm not sure Nintendo even knew what they were doing when they were assigning buttons. Why is the camera a separate rune you have to equip and not built into the scope functionality? It makes no sense, it would have been easy to combine them, it makes general play more tedious than it needs to be. Why does one button skip cutscenes, but then some cutscenes it's a different button? Why does one button make you go fast on land, a different button in water, and a third button on a horse? Why can't you activate Magnesis/Stasis with a shoulder button like you can the camera so you can aim and activate it at the same time? Why do they give you Champion powers that have finite uses before recharge and activate in a way that overwrites an existing function forcing you to have to manually turn them on and off in a separate menu if you want to conserve them (in general, especially a game like this should try to avoid forcing players into menus as much as possible)? Why do powers that recharge have no means to recharge over time before being fully expended so you're not punished for only using something occasionally? Why can't you drop weapons, shields and armor from the quick select menus instead of having to go into your inventory and cycle to the necessary tab? Why when you open a chest and it has equipment in it but your inventory is full you have to then go through closing the chest, open inventory, cycle to the tab, drop something and then go through opening the chest again when you could have been allowed to just drop something to make room in the "here's the item the chest had!" screen?

The forced stealth segment in the main story is incredibly stupid and contrived. It just shrugs its shoulders and ignores several established game mechanics and goes "NO, rigidly do things this specific way or fail!" and for one thing, I thought game designers learned years ago pace-breaking rigid forced stealth segments in games is abysmal. Secondly, this type of gameplay is like the literal antithesis to a sandbox open world game, it takes a total shit on everything else about the actual game. The boss afterwards is also really bad and feels like an old Zelda style boss instead of a BotW one, like this whole segment was designed for a different far inferior Zelda game.

Speaking of dumb design: there shouldn't be physics puzzles that require precision (in such an imprecise physics engine), that are also trial and error, that are also requiring you use finite resources (weapon durability). That...is really fucking stupid. It very rarely comes up, but it does come up, and it's really fucking stupid, and there's like 5~7 obvious simple design choices they could have done to mitigate/remove this stupidity and they didn't.
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^People seroiusly need to lighten up about Master Kohga. Just because a character dresses dark and creepy doesn't mean he nor his minions need to be taken seriously (juggalos, anyone?). Upon meeting and defeating Kohga, my thoughts immediately went back to Chrono Trigger's Ozzie, and how the former could have given the latter a run for his money if Kohga had had more than one brief appearance. So while I was (pleasantly) surprised with how Kohga turned out, considering his clan's habit of disguising themselves as waifus and cackling maniacally with every attack, in retrospect I shouldn't have been surprised at all.
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I personally liked Master Kohga. He was looked like something and not just a brunch a goo with sword .
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Tmk posted...

So other problems:

The game's lock-on is shit. I think this is the lock-on functionality cave paintings had that cavemen designed, it's so archaic. Is it even changed at all from how it was in OoT?

Compared to what you get in a game like Dark Souls/Nioh, it doesn't even really seem like it deserves to be called "lock-on"

In Dark Souls, you click the right joystick, and it locks on to an enemy. You then move that stick to change to other targets relative to the direction you moved it to. The camera focuses on the enemy. In BotW, you have to HOLD the button, to change targets, you let off then hold again and it chooses a new random one, and the real kicker: it doesn't focus the camera! You have to manually move the camera yourself, constantly, while "locked on". This further is harmed by the fact your ability to dodge works on Tales of rules, meaning you have to recognise the type of attack coming and either dodge back, or to the side, to dodge it properly. But since the camera doesn't focus, what constitutes moving yourself "back" or to the side can be disoriented due to the perspective, making it just...clunky and wholly inferior to games with superior systems.

While I really don't disagree with you regarding any of your post, this one stands out the most, being I started with OoT. However, I only really feel I suffered frustration from it with Master Mode. And to a smaller degree Guardians in general when going about the shield deflection. Taking on multiple enemies that regen health and you take a hit because you could not line up your lock right and parry is annoying af. And found that battling multiple enemies for the most part wasn't worth the frustration.

My other complaint in controls would be the inventory. One; wtf does the cursor default to the last item obtained? *Comic book guy* Worst idea ever. *Comic book guy*

Also why is the shoulder buttons scroll through Quest, Inventory, Main Menu. You are more than likely scrolling through your many pages of inventory, and the above menus could easily have been added to the menus with your world map. Then the shoulder buttons could scroll; weapons, armour, materials, food, key items. Instead of the control stick being the only way to go from weapons to key items. For what the game is and how much items and materials are pertinent, it seems they didn't give ease of pulling items from inventory much thought.
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Oh yeah, the scrolling thing in your inventory STILL throws me off and I've been binge-playing it for weeks. >__>


Also regarding Kohga, remember people I'm not criticising like, his visual design, or story. I'm saying gameplay-wise, that stealth segment, and his boss fight, is in a violent clash with the rest of the game. It is in direct conflict with it, in fact.

His boss fight is barely even a boss fight. It's just wait for him to do a thing, then do something allowing you to wail on him for awhile. It's a very by the numbers "classic" Zelda boss with no real thought or engagement from the player possible or involved. Which is a stark contrast to the entirety of the game besides this little portion.
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Tmk posted...

by the numbers "classic" Zelda boss

"Wait for weakpoint to appear, wail on it, repeat two more times" didn't really exist before OOT.

The Yiga stealth in their hideout would have been much less annoying if it were just an option, instead of a requirement (at least I've never successfully completed either mission without stealth). You know, take your pick as to which way you want to go about this.

Also Kohga is like straight out The Three Stooges. It's so out of place, it's almost kind of refreshing. If not at the very least amusing.
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CryoForceOmelet posted...

Astounding first impression I got from it, but just from exploring and doing Kakariko + finding Hateno I already kind of have fatigue. No matter where you go the formula seems the same which is a little boring. Reminds me of MGSV in a lot of ways.

I have to disagree with that fully. MGSVs open world was fucking horrible. There was no purpose to it because it was empty save for the bases.

At least BotW put stuff in their world.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Tmk posted...

by the numbers "classic" Zelda boss

"Wait for weakpoint to appear, wail on it, repeat two more times" didn't really exist before OOT.

Except for LoZ, AoL, ALttP and LA.
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AlternativeFAQS posted...

nintendos first open world game

You mean The Legend of Zelda?

scar the 1 posted...

Questionmarktarius posted...

Tmk posted...

by the numbers "classic" Zelda boss

"Wait for weakpoint to appear, wail on it, repeat two more times" didn't really exist before OOT.

Except for LoZ, AoL, ALttP and LA.

Every boss in LoZ can be violenced to death, except for dondongos, and Ganon, who does not have a "repeat two more times".

Every boss in AoL is violenced to death, except the wizard guy who dies to reflect. No "repeat two more times"

Every boss in LttP is violenced to death, apart from the proto-"tennis match" guys.

LA has that genie bottle guy. Fine.

nah i fucking love it, this is the zelda game i've been wanting and dreaming about for i dont know how long

it has a few issues but they don't bother me that much and i've been playing for like 2 months and 95% of it has been a DAMN good time
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iClockwork posted...

Smashingpmkns posted...

Did BotW deserve all the praise it got? I think so. Especially with how poorly Sony and Microsoft have been doing with making legit pure fun games.

Other companies putting out what you perceive to be as bad games doesn't make a game Nintendo puts out better or worse, wtf.

That's not what I said at all lol I was referring to the awards they received mainly. Probably should have clarified, but even then still not what I said.
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no, TC, it's a masterpiece, but congratulations on having the trendy opinion.

Omnislasher posted...

no, TC, it's a masterpiece, but congratulations on having the trendy opinion.

Tbf I'd say TC is being far more civil about his opinion compared to how much this game has triggered a lot of CE. I mean like this game really bothers some people.
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loose definition of masterpiece