Current Events > 8 years late, but I finally started Breath of the Wild

(+) Yeah! (+)

TyVulpine posted...

I can't get past Ganon in the Ancient Elephant thing, and that's supposed to be the 'easiest' Ganon fight....

Try using Stasis to block the ice blocks, then you can hit it back at the boss to knock it down

Dungeater posted...

on paper the exploration is really good. and for many it is its own reward. for me though i would like incentive to do so, and i dont feel breath of the wild does that well

This is the part where you get lectured on "intrinsic motivation" and more or less told that your brain is too small to understand what makes this tedious ubisoft slop the best game ever

A huge part of what made the games mind-numbingly boring to me was how muted the music was. The Zelda series has always had really bombastic, high-energy BGM, especially for the field themes, but in Breath of the Wild...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGi23M_5lXg

This is like taking Ambien.

KhlavicLanguage posted...

This is the part where you get lectured on "intrinsic motivation" and more or less told that your brain is too small to understand what makes this tedious ubisoft slop the best game ever

See, some comments are objectively wrong. Breath of the Wild was touted for NOT following the Ubisoft formula.

Now I don't think the exploration is perfect and somewhat agree with Dungeater's criticism, but it is nothing like Ubisoft other than having towers.

TMOG posted...

A huge part of what made the games mind-numbingly boring to me was how muted the music was. The Zelda series has always had really bombastic, high-energy BGM, especially for the field themes, but in Breath of the Wild...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGi23M_5lXg

This is like taking Ambien.

Yeah the field themes are minimalistic, but there are still plenty of epic-sounding themes. Try listening to the Divine Beast battle themes

KhlavicLanguage posted...

This is the part where you get lectured on "intrinsic motivation" and more or less told that your brain is too small to understand what makes this tedious ubisoft slop the best game ever

Not liking open world style is fine, but BotW is the antithesis of Ubisoft exploration. Very little of the environment feels randomly generated, and you're not moving from checkpoint to checkpoint.

bsp77 posted...

See, some comments are objectively wrong. Breath of the Wild was touted for NOT following the Ubisoft formula.

Now I don't think the exploration is perfect and somewhat agree with Dungeater's criticism, but it is nothing like Ubisoft other than having towers.

Uhh wow, yikes, look who's never heard of an opinion hrm hrmmm.

Split hairs all you want, frankly the ways BOTW differs from something like AC Odyssey mainly make it worse

KhlavicLanguage posted...

Uhh wow, yikes, look who's never heard of an opinion hrm hrmmm.

Split hairs all you want, frankly the ways BOTW differs from something like AC Odyssey mainly make it worse

Not liking the open world is an opinion. Saying it is like Ubisoft is simply wrong and not an opinion.

Letsago posted...

Yeah the field themes are minimalistic, but there are still plenty of epic-sounding themes. Try listening to the Divine Beast battle themes

Oh, I'm not arguing against that, but the field themes are what you're going to be hearing for most of the game and they set the tone and overall energy level more than any other piece of music.

bsp77 posted...

Not liking the open world is an opinion. Saying it is like Ubisoft is simply wrong and not an opinion.

Pivoting a series towards being open-world is enough to say they're Ubisoft-ing it. You don't get to decide what that means, it's just your opinion. Nyak nyak nyak.

KhlavicLanguage posted...

Pivoting a series towards being open-world is enough to say they're Ubisoft-ing it. You don't get to decide what that means, it's just your opinion.

So any open world is now Ubisoft like? Okay, then

KhlavicLanguage posted...

Nyak nyak nyak

Seriously. Why are you like this?

bsp77 posted...

So any open world is now Ubisoft like? Okay, then

Um, have you heard of an opinion? Sheesh. Tag checks out.

KhlavicLanguage posted...

Um, have you heard of an opinion? Sheesh. Tag checks out.

Any tag from a poster like you is an honor

I will say this, BOTW greatly benefited from being the killer new game on new hardware (since not many people bought the Wii U), and its sales likely greatly benefited from that.

To put this in perspective, I think of Fire Emblem Awakening. It was meant to be the last Fire Emblem due to Ike's games and the remakes of Marth's games (the latter which was never localized, referring to FE12) not selling well. And it was terrible. Terrible difficulty setting, broken mechanics like Pair-Up, generally bad implementation of the child mechanic from FE4, and several parts of the plot (Shield of Seals and gems) being not well understood by people who didn't emulate FE12 since the game explained what the gems were. But guess what, it sold really well, as in it was the best selling Fire Emblem at the point, mostly attributed to being the killer app on the 3DS and somewhat due to the dating/waifu stuff catching on which brought in some of the horny crowd. Heck, the usual line on the FE board is, "Awakening may have saved the series, but my god is it bad."

And I have the same sentiment regarding Zelda BOTW. It feels like Ubisoft games I actively avoid due to being padded out with either empty space or blatant filler (hence Assassin's Creed: Hyrule Edition and similar names have popped up), has a so-so story, and lacks the dungeons which have made the series what it is all the way since Zelda 1 back in 1986. It makes me wish that the game was an entirely different IP despite knowing that the Zelda team just makes Zelda games. Best thing I can say BOTW is Nintendo actually cares about their games not being buggy messes unlike Ubisoft. But yeah, despite the issues, the game releasing with the Switch and being the killer app (one of a few good games for a while) made it sell better than any previous Zelda. Props even if it isn't what most previous fans wanted for the series.

And lastly, one other thing that applies to both of these "killer apps"... They expanded the fanbases of both games, which is great, but it had some, let's say, negative consequences. Mainly, Broken Bases were created. For Fire Emblem, some of the newer folks + horny crowd didn't play well with the rest of the Fire Emblem fan base and attacked the previous games for not being "as good". Luckily Three Houses appealed to both groups (and got rid of the child mechanic that was hamfisted in Fates in a way making everyone a terrible parent) and a lot of the ill will between the two sides had been healed or at least being directed into endless Edelgard is good/bad discussions. As for Zelda BOTW, some people who couldn't take criticism of the game at all entered the fanbase and were thus really nasty about anyone criticizing it. The worst of them said the older games weren't really worth playing and said that BOTW caused more innovation in the gaming industry that OoT ever did (just stop...) despite the former being very derivative of the games again Ubisoft has been putting out for a long time. It seems these people have went off to be toxic elsewhere and the situation around criticising the game has changed (most people in polls want the dungeon focus to come back and can be open about it without great controversy as seen in this topic not degenerating into a flame war), but yeah, the worst defenders of Soulsborne or DOTA2 weren't nearly as unpleasant to interact with as those people.

MagiMarthKoopa posted...

... oh

Does TOTK have dungeons? I bought that too

TOTK has better dungeons than BOTW by far, but they are still severely lacking. I "echo" someone else that said play Echoes of Wisdom, which does have traditional dungeons.

while i disagree with the categorization of BotW exploration as "ubisoft slop" i do find it evocative of the ubisoft experience from a purely surface level

Kaldrenthebold posted...

TOTK has better dungeons than BOTW by far, but they are still severely lacking. I "echo" someone else that said play Echoes of Wisdom, which does have traditional dungeons.

Yeah, Echoes of Wisdom, which I am only half way through, is amazing.

Dungeater posted...

while i disagree with the categorization of BotW exploration as "ubisoft slop" i do find it evocative of the ubisoft experience from a purely surface level

Nintendo actually doesn't put out buggy game after buggy game, so BOTW is better than the "Ubisoft slop" in that regard, but otherwise, they feel rather similar.

Dungeater posted...

while i disagree with the categorization of BotW exploration as "ubisoft slop" i do find it evocative of the ubisoft experience from a purely surface level

Ummm no it's completely different. It's not like Ubisoft at all. As an expert on boring fucking open world games that waste your time, I'm telling you, they are completely different. It's like saying Coke and Pepsi actually taste pretty similar. Only someone trolling would say such a thing.

Dungeater posted...

on paper the exploration is really good. and for many it is its own reward. for me though i would like incentive to do so, and i dont feel breath of the wild does that well

I vibe with this. I don't think BOTW has the legs to have this huge open world. There just often...isn't anything worth exploring. I don't understand what people find so enticing about going anywhere you want when there is zero need or reason. I didn't need Korok seeds after expanding my inventory enough to not have to worry about it. I don't need some junky weapon from a chest that is going to break (and probably worse than what is already in my inventory). The most you can hope for are some materials for crafting or rupees. Otherwise, after you get enough shrines to max your stamina and get enough hearts for the master sword, those become useless as well. My favorite part was that island where it took away all your stuff and you needed to improvise, it felt like the beginning of the game was far better than the rest. Once you overcome a lot of the systems, you are left with...nothing.

I dunno, it really just felt like an empty open world with zero need to actually look around. TOTK remedies this a bit, but overall, I just am not a big fan of BOTW / TOTK style Zelda. Some people consider them the greatest games ever made and I just scratch my head, and I've loved Zelda my entire life.

KhlavicLanguage posted...

Ummm no it's completely different. It's not like Ubisoft at all. As an expert on boring fucking open world games that waste your time, I'm telling you, they are completely different. It's like saying Coke and Pepsi actually taste pretty similar. Only someone trolling would say such a thing.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but to me, BOTW gives off the same vibe with other 3D open world games too big for their own good with either empty space or filler designed to pad game length.

And yeah I mentioned Ubisoft due to being the most noteworthy example, but other developers make similar games with similar vibes. Ex: Bethesda and Rockstar immediately come to mind.

Charged151 posted...

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but to me, BOTW gives off the same vibe with other 3D open world games too big for their own good with either empty space or filler designed to pad game length.

And yeah I mentioned Ubisoft due to being the most noteworthy example, but other developers make similar games with similar vibes. Ex: Bethesda and Rockstar immediately come to mind.

The only rockstar game I'd say fits that mold is RDR2. The GTA series is pretty good at combining an open world with genuinely interesting gameplay and an entertaining story.

Rika_Furude posted...

I dont get why they cant just take the open world mechanics theyve built, and just drop in 5-8 full sized dungeons somewhere in them. Best of both worlds

TotK basically did this though?

anyway this is where Id recommend Immortals Fenyx Rising. Other than the Temu Dreamworks tier cutscenes I think it took a lot of what BotW did and improved on it, especially the dungeons

some people didnt like the whole puzzles everywhere aspect but I think it made for a much more interesting overworld than BotW

TheGoldenEel posted...

anyway this is where Id recommend Immortals Fenyx Rising. Other than the Temu Dreamworks tier cutscenes I think it took a lot of what BotW did and improved on it, especially the dungeons

My wife really enjoyed that game. Haven't played it.

I think I have Immortals on PS4, curious if there's a free PS5 upgrade. I liked that game much more than BOTW but stopped for some reason.

GeneralKenobi85 posted...

Also regarding the dungeon items, I find it interesting that nobody seemed to mind the usual progression getting shaken up in A Link Between Worlds.

I DID

i hate link between worlds do to the item rent system

My least favorite Zelda game, Tears is my second least favorite Zelda game.

I found the exploration a ton of fun in both of them but whatevs. And I like the brute size dungeons.

Dungeater posted...

the item loaning was the subject of a ton of discourse around albw

Yeah at release I imagine. But years later, I always see extremely positive opinions of ALBW.

I think the big thing for me was that BOTW/TOTK proved to me that you didn't always need the staple Zelda conventions to make a good Zelda game. That said, I do think I'd prefer to go back to the old 3D style of game for the next few installments because those are still great too.

Kaldrenthebold posted...

My favorite part was that island where it took away all your stuff and you needed to improvise, it felt like the beginning of the game was far better than the rest. Once you overcome a lot of the systems, you are left with...nothing.

Agreed, since there's an actual sense of progression there and you're learning about new mechanics and how they can help you. At a point, and this could be pretty early on, you can just ignore a lot of the games mechanics. I think this is a scenario where less content would have been better.