Topic: Please explain me why Breath of the Wild got so many high scores

@skywake Breath of the Wild tells you about 60% of the story through an exposition-y cutscene at the end of the tutorial area.

@Haru17
And most games tell 99% of the story and gameplay tutorial through dialogue and cutscenes. BotW basically just gives you a glider and an open map.

Surprised this thread hasn't been locked. But anyway...

My feelings are mixed on this one too. Moments where I'm loving it. Other times where I feel it's just a pointless grind.

I've only gotten as far as I have (60 temples and most of the map covered) because of internet maps, walkthroughs and youtube videos. This game would have been a nightmare if I were required to figure everything out for myself. Would've probably have had taken it back for a refund actually.

I think the biggest issue however is the story. The flashback cutscenes are great, but I'd have preferred it if we were actually living out the preparation for the ultimate battle with Calamity Ganon in real time; with plot twists, politics, character bondings, rivalries, inner turmoils and struggles, etc. It seems the team went so much out of their way to copy and paste what made other contemporary titles successful, they completely forgot to include a gripping story to hold it all together. Not that Zelda has ever been great on the story front, but this one feels bare bones even for a Zelda title.

In avoiding sounding too negative, there are things that I like. I prefer horse riding to running forever and ever, and it's great that they add the function to let horses follow the main roads. Some of the visuals look great on the small screen, the battle mechanics are the best in the series, and the weapon degregation isn't as bad as I thought it'd be. Gliding is a lot of fun.... actually, I'm not sure why I enjoyed a lot of it so much.

I think it has a lot of that mobile game F2P feeling of "need to grind to get that bit better" thing going on. Just one more temple... then one more. Oh, two more then another heart... it surprisingly kept me glued for quite a while. But some of these temples took ages to reach, and a lot of hard work, and after hitting half way I can't say I'm enthusiastic about going for the other 50%. Yeah, I'd definitely describe this as like a free mobile game where you spend silly hours trying to improve your states when suddenly it dawns on you that you're often not playing for fun, but out of habit. And it's during these moments of clarity when I realise I'm better off playing other games where I am playing for fun.

I fully understand why people with lots of time and energy on their hands enjoy this; lots of people seem to really love exploring barren locations in video games, improving gear, etc, but it's honestly too much for someone with a full time job and commitments to muster.

I haven't played it for about a week plus now. At some point I'll force myself to play through more, and perhaps just take on the four beasts and try and complete quickly and perhaps sell the game off for some extra cash. But for now, back to Puyo Puyo Tetris.

@skywake Breath of the Wild just didn't have much story at all, and what little there was was explained at the start of the game, removing all purported discovery. If they had worked out a few more hours of cutscenes and dialogue, maybe it would have any narrative worth whatsoever.

As it is, it's a game without an antagonist or even a reason for not having an antagonist. Most of the cutscenes there are are other characters monologuing to the silent protagonist, who remains un-emotive at best.

@Haru17 Story, at least from my perspective, isn't really necessary for a game to be amazing. And even though it lacks in length of cutscenes, the story of zelda has always been a simple one. Princess needs saving, pig man needs killing, talk to some funny looking people along the way to help you build up your power before the pig man. Zelda BOTW really hits all those bases. Longer cutscenes would have eventually forced Link to talk, and that's something they've never done with Zelda before. Hell, this is the first game that "Link" is even his given name. Also the first Zelda with voice acting. The only game I've played with hours upon hours of cutscenes is Metal Gear Solid 3, and the cutscenes work because of the linear gameplay design and movie-esque plot. MGS3 is functionally a playable 30-hour movie. And while that's good in its own respect, it's certainly never been what Zelda is about and would not have worked with an open world and so much freedom. MGS3 worked as a movie because you, like in a movie, were always shepherded to the next cutscene, gameplay was simply the work you had to do before you were rewarded with another cutscene. In Breath of the Wild, being totally open world with no linearity after the Great Plateau (and even that was open), there would be no way to make sure that players even saw all the cutscenes. What a waste that would have been for the devs- to make long, detailed, intensive cutscenes, and then just have players miss them. Basically, I think the cutscenes in BOTW were designed to be missed, any longer and then you either have to implement linear gameplay or risk gamers not seeing the detailed story.

I do love the fact that Link's awkward silence in the cutscenes is entirely canon and not part of the "only the player can't hear him" thing all the games do with Link.

He does talk, it's just that none of the in-game cutscenes involve him doing so.

Was also disapointed. It was highly polished (besides framerates) mediocricity to me. Made the same mistakes many other (big) open worlds do. Making me do the same things over and over just to feel big but not giving me any real reason to do them besides completionism.
Story felt really bland. Go save the princess (who i really dislike in this one) kind of bland. Dungeons could at least look differently.
But journeying was great in the beginning.

I think the issue is that a 7 means mediocre, and an 8 means OK. I'm still talking about many games from the past, I definitely don't think they deserve a 10. Heck, I wouldn't even give my favourite game a 10/10. A 5 is mediocre in my books, and a 6 is better than average. 9 is GOTY material, 10 is GOTG material.

@Haru17 The story is the journey.

Player also cannot hear Gordon Freeman's voice.
The game is full of cutscenes, music, and excellent dialogues.

Fun fact: There are Switch owners that never had previous Nintendo consoles.
I am one of them.
So yes, I bought the console and Zelda because of all the praises and great reviews.

@GrailUK Exactly, you are pretty much doing your story, similar to Dark Souls. Every game has each way to tell it, and just because a typeof doing it isn't engaging to some doesn't mean that it lacks one or that it's doing it wrong. It's ok to prefer a more "classic" approach, but whe people interact with so many npcs and do so much I really get surprised when they say that the game lacks a story, like if they couldn't see something that it's right in front of them just because it doesn't have neon lights advertising it.

My favourite movies lack exposition and just show you the story. This game tells you what you need to know through the environment. NPC dialogue and cutscenes are secondary to gliding into a valley, seeing a burnt shack and having the peace broken by a guardian.
It's a game not a book or a radio show. It tells the story though gameplay.

IMO, story should be optional in all games. The player shouldn't have to sit through a lengthy cutscene or dialogue if they don't want to. But that doesn't mean it shouldn't be there. And exposition about minor characters should be there if the player chooses to seek it out.

@happylittlepigs You're just objectively wrong, and your low expectations disappoint the pedigree of the Zelda series. Look up literally any of the past 3D games and "movie" and you'll find 2, 3, and — in the case of Twilight Princess — 5 hour long videos containing only boss fights, story sequences, and cutscenes and everything else in those games that took storytelling effort. While not all of the past Zeldas have had successful narratives, it's nothing more than a lie to pretend the story was anything but a large part of Breath of the Wild and the Zelda series as a whole's marketing.

Your logic of 'people might not find it, so why even try' is frighteningly close to the current Zelda team's, but that doesn't make it a wise ethos. While open worlds do present narrative challenges — namely filling the world with enough cutscenes, dialogue, and story sequences to make it feel like anything more than a flight sim map — that's no reason to not write a story at all. And that isn't even the case here — Breath of the Wild does purport and attempt a story. It is a bad, low-effort, sexist, trope-filled one. Ponderous and nihilistic questions about the meaning of narrative overall do not cure those failures.

@GrailUK The journey has too many Bokoblins, then. Please forward the next bout of pseudo intellectual game journalist speak to my email: [email protected]. If instead you would like to talk actual details about the plot rather than that political nonsense, hit me up here.

Definitely some truth to this.
There are yearly fashions of such things.

To me there is no perfect game. In order for a game to be perfect, every person on the planet has to enjoy it with no flaws appearing to anyone. However I don't think a 10 means perfection but rather an amazing experience that is so closest to perfection. I personally love this game and I loved the story. And for me story doesn't necessarily mean the main quest line, but also all the story telling done through side quest and environmental story telling. All of that put together created an awesome story for me. Also Zelda is such an amazing character in this game. She was a relate-able character whom I i really cared for and became my favourite version of Zelda. The feeling of exploration was just amazing in this game and there were so many moments where I just stopped and stared at the scenery (as well as take a couple of screen shots XD). Idk, this game just made me feel things I haven't feel in years and it's an experience I will always fondly remember.

I think the problem isn't that 7 is mediocre because to be frank 7 is mediocre. By the time a game has gone through the process of being developed, funded and published? You're going to cut out a lot of lower quality content. Most of the "bellow average" stuff is never released and even if it is odds are reviewers aren't rushing out to be the first to review it.

For example on the Wii U's page on metacritic the games in the middle of the ranked list are games like Paper Mario Colour Splash and Hyrule Warriors. They got a rating of 76%. And you know what? I think that's fair. Those are not "5/10" games. They're actually not that bad. It's hard to argue that those games don't fit into my description of them being "good but not fantastic". But from the list of games that actually get published? Yeah, they're pretty average.

So no, I don't think the issue is that a 7/10 is seen as mediocre. I think that happening is simply a result of most games that get to the point where they can be reviewed not being horrible. It's like if I said the new Gorrilaz album was a 7/10 which I kinda think it is. I can say that and still think that if I picked random albums from genres I liked I'd probably rate about half of them higher.

As others have said, read the reviews.

So you disagree with them. Not much anyone can do about that. Why don't you launch your own site and review games too?

@skywake I understand, but if those games never come out anyway, there's no way to compare them to those games, right? Most games that come out are finished products, so there's no use in comparing them to unfinished products if that means that all the ''good'' games get rated between 8 and 10. Why not lower the bar and say anything above a 5 (mediocre) is ''good'', and anything below is ''bad''? Not saying the median should be a 5, but I just don't agree with the idea that a 7 is ''mediocre'', that's what a 5 should mean.

People often joke that anything up to a 7 in gaming means a bad game, and only 9s and 10s are good games, well, that's true. Some reviewers and readers do interpret a 7 as ''bad'', I think that needs to change. A 4 is ''bad'', a 7 is at least ''good''. For example, I'd say that an 8 means it's an awesome game you probably need to play. Unfortunately that's not how all reviews work. I think we're just arguing semantics here, but I do think there's a slight shift to the positive scores. Don't be afraid to hand out a 6 or a 7 when a game isn't terrible.

And for the record, yes, I would give Colour Splash a 5.

Yeah, this. There's a point in life where you start to value your time more. Same reason I've not come close to finishing a JRPG in ages (except Mario RPGs). I want to like them but they just don't feel worth it anymore. And although I am enjoying Breath of the Wild, I have to think that with this sprawling sort of game you're having less fun per minute than you would with a smaller, more focused game of equivalent quality.

I too loved Skyward Sword. I agree with the common complaint about hand-holding but otherwise it's great. Do motion controls put people off that much? I feel like people tend to confuse "unfamiliar" with "bad" when it comes to controls.

As for this talk of review scores, haven't you noticed this very site is an exception to those trends? Roughly speaking, a 6 on Nintendo Life is "some people might like it" and a 5 is "meh, it's functional". And they review all the eShop releases other reviewers would never touch (which means the whole range of scores is actually usable). I like this site, man.