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

@Haru17 I really don't see how this game is sexist in the way it portrays Zelda. Simply because she isn't able to unlock her power from the get go doesn't mean she's placed into a position where she is useless. We're shown that as well as her training, she's constantly trying to find as much information as she possibly can regarding sheikah technology and we know she works with both Impa and Purah to discover several shrines, including the one of resurrection that saves link. And she's not in the role of just a damsel in distress. She's in the Castle not because she was captured by Ganon, but rather because she's there fighting Ganon and keeping him contained. The only reason Hyrule even continues to exist is because she's there. This game illustrates Zelda as a strong, intelligent young women who's gone through many struggles that are quite relate-able to many. Just because she isn't fighting alongside link and being his companion constant, doesn't mean that she doesn't play an active role in the game.

To touch on some of the points made above, I do not believe that the legacy of a franchise should affect the review of an individual game in that franchise.

BOTW may be the most 'Zelda' game since the NES or not a true Zelda game if you feel it is too far a departure from OOT (I don't have an opinion on that point) but that legacy should not affect the review of a game. It should be whether or not that game is good, not whether it recreates part of a previous installment. If a game is marked up because you personally feel it gets back to a gameplay you liked in a previous installment, then that is wrong imo. If, by doing so, the game itself is better then that is fine.

If I am honest, I feel like nostalgia and love for the franchise has affected the reviews of BOTW, great though it is. If you take the game as just a game, review it by that standards I think it does some things very well and some things not as well. That is how the game should be judged.

@BiasedSonyFan I think scores are just shorthand for the adjective of quality.

https://www.nintendolife.com/scoring

Deciding whether a game deserves a 8, 9 or 10 may be difficult but deciding whether a game is great, excellent or outstanding should be a lot easier.

If someone gave me to review a genuinely excellent team sports game, first person shooter or other genre I don't enjoy regardless of the game's quality, I would rate them all low based on my own enjoyment of the game. But that would not be fair to the game or to the readers who want to be informed by the review. So I don't think a reviewer's personal experiences should come into account as to whether a game is actually good or not, unless the reviewer is some kind of celebrity and has fans who want to know their personal opinion of a game as opposed to whether the game is actually good or not.

@Rudy_Manchego It's not really possible to detach an entry in a franchise from the rest of the franchise though. Neither with film nor with games (nor books for that matter.) Each builds upon elements, lore, concepts from within the rest of the franchise, and how well it fits in with its larger franchise is in fact part of its own necessary tent-poles ,and it has to be evaluated in that context. If it were just a game, just a new IP, it would be a new game, and it could be evaluated on its own. But it's including itself within the Zelda family of games. Final Fantasy XV is including itself with the FF family of games, Metroid Prime: Federation Force included itself within the Metroid Prime family of games. And that's the point of a franchise/brand, it puts out the idea that it's part of something familiar, and that fans of that familiar something are who ought to be looking at it. So for a critic, evaluating how well a Zelda game fits in as a Zelda game in the Zelda world and how it might or might not please a fan of an existing Zelda game is a very important part of evaluating it. Similarly, Federation Force may have been more well regarded critically and commercially were it simply "Galaxy Fighters: Heroes Unite" and could be evaluated on its own. But Nintendo branded it Prime, and included in game elements, lore, and characters to make it Prime, and for better or worse, a critic had to evaluate its role as a part of the Prime family of games. So a review of FF needs to consider that it's a decent game on its own, and consider that it does incorporate enough of Prime to play as a Prime game, and yet, isn't very good as a Prime game (though that game was openly a spin-off, not a main entry, so it buys some leeway.)

Similarly, the new Star Wars movies do have to be evaluated as their own movie, but they also have to be evaluated as a part of the larger whole going back to Alec Guinness, and that legacy may help or hurt how the new movie is perceived, and a critic has to take that into account.

BotW is a main entry Zelda title with all the history that goes with it. That it's not in line with the recent Zelda formula is a fair criticism. That it's the 30-year late proper 3D representation of Zelda 1 is a fair praise. And both are fair, even necessary part of the review and final result, though I do believe the critics that bash it for not following the mid-series formula are missing the larger perspective that it's a reset to the series original formula which doesn't count as a change in direction as much as a reset and refocus, but it's fair to point out.

Franchises are a double edged sword. When you drape a product in the blanket of a known brand, it's explicitly saying it must be viewed as a part of that larger whole, and not as its own entity.

@NEStalgia Hmm interesting one, I can see your point but I would counter that a good game is a good entry in a franchise as opposed to having to live up to franchise elements to make it a good game.

If, for example, BOTW had actually taken Link out to space to rescue Zelda (which, judging by the making of video, there were suggestions of aliens!) from Space gannon. Gameplay is almost inrecognisable from any previous installment but, all agree, the new gameplay is amazing, narratively perfect, graphically imaginative. Should that game review less well because it is such a departure from the franchise or should it review really well with a caveat that it is not the same as past installments?

Comparisons are always going to be made because people want a benchmark and it is easy to do but I'm not sure, from a philosophical point, if that is right. I think comparing a franchise entry to other franchise entries do the game a disservice either way because you either focus on what is the same or isnt when the question should be, how do those choices affect the game?

@Rudy_Manchego I'd say it's a little of both. A good game is a good entry in a franchise, but it ALSO should live up to the franchise elements.

In your space Zelda game (why do I suddenly want to actually play this? ) I think the scores would and should take a hit for that. If it claims to be a Zelda game but departs so far it's not really comparable to it's own series it would be acceptable if it's intentionally a reinvention/reboot/continuation for the future of the franchise, it's fine to represent a turning point away from a past legacy if the game itself makes a case for a reasoning of that in its own universe. That shouldn't harm the scores if it aims for continuity. The setting itself would be odd, but if it also changed the gameplay formula it's a different game claiming to be part of the Zelda legacy. If it's a statement that the story universe has believably moved there, and this is the future now, ok, that can be taken as a direction shift. If it's a spin-off title, a one off nonsensical space journey but doesn't represent the next major installment, it can be given a one-off look (something that SHOULD have happened more with Federation Force, but for some reason too many reviewers were not convinced it was merely a spinoff.) But if it was a main installment, not justified as a shift in direction and reboot for the future, but just kind of randomly "so we did it this way this time", it should take a penalty for not being faithful to its franchise.

That's why the franchise people have to be so concerned about what fits their game!

The one interesting thing about your example is if we swap "Zelda" for "Call of Duty", that example actually happened last year And it critically and commercially disappointed. Taking the originally WWII series to modern drug cartel wars was a logical progression, but throwing it in such a weird direction, throwing it in space, it was no longer true to its source. And had they announced a direction shift or reboot of the brand that it was now a future fighter series, they could have been met with positive feedback, but they instead approached it as a same-old entry in the same-old series....but this time too different.

It comes down to the point of a franchise though. It aims to establish a core basis that when you buy a game in a franchise (or a film in a franchise) it will have a specific base feel, mechanic, and structure to it. If it leaves that structure it's no longer that franchise (or is a bad entry because it's bad at being a part of a franchise it claims to be) unless the franchise is explicitly being changed.

But it's a balancing act both from the production side (how do you make a new game that's different but still is part of the franchise proper? And when do you decide to formally revamp a franchise?) and difficult on the critical side to recognize when a game quietly reinvents a franchise versus when it simply fails to be a proper part of its franchise?

Federation Force is a beautiful example of the latter, with critics reviewing it as Metroid Prime 4 (of which that game would be a catastrophic failure of grand proportions if it were) rather than a silly multiplayer spinoff in the same story world (in which case it was actually an excellent game, but with a major failing that the difficulty/damage didn't scale for less than 4 players and that seriously ruined the possible fun to be had with it.)

@Pocky Link actually does have some personality laid out, even if it is obviously not as fleshed out as Zelda's. In her diary she mentions that his general mute-ness is a result of him trying to appear as a stoic, capable knight in the eyes of his superiors. He is also a big eater, which you can notice in gameplay if you leave him standing after a critical cooking success, wiping his mouth with expectant glee.

@Zeev
I think outside personal preferences, reviewers can just tell it is a good game. I was also very disappointed by the dungeons and bosses, as well as lack of enemy variety in the huge world, but if I were to review it I don't think I could give it below an 8 or 9 out of 10 just because of all the things it does right

The fact that BOTW is being accused of being sexist is so ridiculous to me. There's plenty of things to criticize the game over that are valid, and it's definitely not that lol

@Haru17
So what you want is a Mary Sue? I much rather take the Zelda we got, who struggles (you know, conflict: the basis of all storytelling) with her powers and the burden placed on her, but manages to overcome these by the end. Extremely straightforward growth story — I don't see where the sexism kicks in. She saves Link both by her inexplicable Goddess powers and her wits, since it was her drive to research the ancient technology which ended up unearthing the Resurrection chamber and therefore saving gravely wounded Link. That's not to mention all the other research she did on the Guardians.

I want to address another point on BotW story: yes, it is rather slim at places, but there are other ways to tell a story than throw a cutscene at the player. Cutscenes after all are extremely disjointed from the actual game, as the player has no option but to sit there while the game crams all this story down one's throat. BotW tells bits of its story through the game world: all the characters who heard stories of the Great Calamity although its memory has already started to fade, or the enormous castle in Akkala, which gives an glimpse into Hyrule Kingdom before the calamity. What about the ruins in Faron and the tribe that lived there and most likely disappeared long before the events of the game? The diaries of Zelda and the king give good insight into their feelings and motivations as well. All of these are fragments are optional; told through the game world and in gameplay instead of thrusting them to players through cutscenes. This should be taken into account when discussing BotW's story, I believe.

@ClockworkMario In this 2017 any semblance of agency in female characters is labeled a Mary Sue. Cool.

It's obvious why Breath's story is sexist: Stories centering around a damsel plot are

Not.

Okay.

in 2017. It's lazy, and adheres to socially constructed gender norms as opposed to any sort of real people, be they whatever gender. I see no reason to write a story around the victimization of a female character —
like Skyward Sword, like Breath of the Wild — unless you have some sort of investment in a gendered power disparity, or ever sheer incompetence on the part of the writer. On top of that you have the fact that both games are implied-but-not-explicit-but-we-know-what-they-mean romance stories where you have to save your mute protag boi's love interest — your love interest, because you like girls doncha, viewer? — from the forces of evil.

And stop pretending that having to work for the fragments of an incomplete-once-completed story excuses these flaws. Further, the champion's death scenes are never shown, what Zelda was going to tell the Deku Tree is never shown, Kass' song is never addressed in the main quest. They didn't even bother to finish the paltry sexist story they deigned to write and dared to sell.

I guess girls in fictional stories can't be anything less than all-powerful without being damsels anymore.

I think having a girl in your game, period, is sexist these days

"Breath is definitely the sexist and gender normative of the two because the little there is of its story focuses on Zelda: how she can't do anything and how Link can."

^
|
|
|

This is your brain on identity politics, kids.

Zelda's portrayal is the furthest possible thing from sexist: she struggles with, but ultimately rises to be the equal of her own destiny, and ends up being the only person who can keep the world from destruction after Link screws up.

But, no, none of that matters. What matters is that a WOMAN was portrayed as being less able than a MAN in any respect, at any point in time, regardless of narrative context. That makes it PROBLEMATIC and SEXIST.

Not that sexism hasn't reared its ugly head in the series before. The Wind Waker is a great example. I love that game to death, but yes, turning the capable and proudly independent Tetra into a shivering pile of womanflesh that is made to hide in the basement after her true identity revealed is... well, pretty darn sexist. It takes a proudly independent female character and defangs her once her gendered role as a princess is revealed.

But BotW? No. It has the most nuanced and human portrayal of Zelda in the entire series. She's much more of an actual character here than she is in any of the previous games.

@Ralizah Uh, what I saw was a case of something along the likes of "witness protection:" Tetra, after her transformation to the princess, was kept hidden because Ganondorf would literally tear out her guts and eat it raw if he got hold of her. Pretty sure Link and the king didn't want that. Not that it mattered anyway... Zelda was eventually found and taken away. And let's not mention the endgame, where Zelda isn't trying to help you take down Ganon.. but actually you. My point? I'm not seeing any sexism anywhere.
Also... Not sure why this thread detailed to a discussion about sexism. Why did this game get lots of good reviews? Because everyone thinks it's a very good game. End of story.

@Vee_Flames Well, no. Tetra ends up getting captured anyway, as you acknowledge, and this horrible violence you allude to never takes place. Moreover, the character is depicted as being tough, fearless, and not backing down in the face of danger. So having her hide in the basement of the castle was insulting and out of character. To me, at least. It's one of the few flaws in an otherwise lovely game.

Call it bad writing instead of sexism, if you like. I'm not married to that word, but the whole situation did rub me the wrong way.

@Ralizah You know, I was joking at that part where I said Tetra was trying to kill you. I was merely referring to the part about the endgame boss fight where you had to reflect her Light Arrows to attack Ganondorf. If you didn't? You'd take damage. Take enough damage? You'll die. That's what I meant. But I dunno... I still see it as a form of witness protection. I'm pretty sure Tetra knew her brashness wasn't what it would take to take Ganondorf down. At that point she was already sure of Link's strength and potential. Don't get me wrong, it wouldn't hurt if Tetra did something else apart from sit in the castle basement and then get kidnapped later on, but I'm not sure it's that insulting, as you say.
But hey, fantastic game, that Wind Waker!
EDIT: Oh yeah, before I forget. The whole point of that joke was to highlight the fact that at least Tetra did a lot to help you rather than just sit in a basement.

@Vee_Flames When I referred to violence, I meant the bit in your post about Ganondorf "eating her guts" or whatever. I knew the bit about her trying to kill you was a joke.

If The Wind Waker had more varied stuff to find in the ocean and had proper dungeons when you're trying to find those Triforce shards (and changed that situation I was talking about), it'd probably be my favorite Zelda game. Or close to the top, at least. Not because it's a super amazing game on a mechanical level, but because I think the art style, music, plot, and characters are so fun and memorable. It's pure cartoon joy. So different from the drab, monotonous, and UGLY Twilight Princess.

@Ralizah Oh. Yeah. That. Lol, that was a joke as well (maybe I shouldn't have said the word "literally" in that joke. May or may not make the situation better, I dunno. Regardless, it was a joke).
I agree with you on all other points, though. Except Wind Waker IS my favorite Zelda game. Even as I'm enjoying BotW a heck of a lot I'm not sure it's gonna overtake Wind Waker. That game truly is pure cartoon joy.
BotW gets a very close second, though.

@Ralizah Yeah, I'd call that bad writing. Always look at it from this point of view, if Tetra/Zelda was a guy in that particular instance, would it still be sexism? Probably not, and everybody would write it off as just a flaw in the story. I don't see any reason why I should treat both genders differently, so I wouldn't call it sexism. The issue is going from a fully capable pirate to a ''incapable'' human being, who suddenly can't do all of that anymore. Doesn't have anything to do with sexism I think. It's just ''bad''/questionable writing.