Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

@FGPackers Right? I see things everywhere I go. Animals to hunt, enemies to fight, quests to carry out, not to mention all of the memories and the compendium to fill out. There's just so much there that I can't see where the "empty" claim is coming from.

@BraveSonic I guess you haven't played a lot of other open world games...

Breath of the wild has a nice balance I think and isn't a mess like a lot of other open world games.

Octane, you're trying too hard lately, man.

@rallydefault BOTW is pretty empty in certain areas. Problem is that people take it as a negative thing. Ever played Shadow of the Colossus? That game used 'emptiness' in a brilliant way. I think BOTW is using it in a similar way, and I'm not complaining about it. The emptiness focuses your attention to the interesting parts of the game. Look around you, there's always at least a dozen of interesting things to see, no matter where you stand. This is partly due to its clever use of emptiness. So when I say it's empty (in certain areas), that's not necessarily a bad thing. However, on the other hand that doesn't mean that every single part is brimming with content either.

@Octane If every part was brimming with comtent it would be made by Ubisoft.

The map would be flooded with icons.

When I find a spot where its empty and open it means I can see far out. I can spot things I may have missed.

Even if seems empty that emptiness isnt just to relax you, or even hold a few secrets. Its for you to take in fhe world and plan.

@BLP_Software That's what I love about BotW. The map isn't flooded with icons. It lets you have a good glimpse of your surroundings, and doesn't overwhelm you. All of the icons are relegated to the larger map when pressing -. As you said, any emptiness can be used to plan for when you run into a tough enemy. For instance, when I raided a moblin camp with like four-five hearts of health, there were strong moblins and I got wrecked in matter of seconds from just running in. After I died, I used the nearby empty cliffside to plan a strategy to attack the moblins with arrows from another cliff they couldn't reach, and I killed them all. When a world is too filled, you have less room as a player to use that space for your own benefits.

@meleebrawler thats whats weird, i do hold it down and half the time i will get a backflip and half the time it will just hop backwards which is bad lol

BOTW empty? Have you played Final Fantasy 14 A Realm Reborn? Talk about empty, that game has no hidden dungeons, no hidden treasure you will stumble across, no awesome sword you will find like the flame sword on that tree stump. FF is just a big empty world with no exploration, everything cookie cutter and planned out for you to go, cant climb or do anything, super linear game. BOTW is like if skyrim, dragons dogma, and dragon quest fused together.

The world is pretty empty in a lot of areas, especially compared to a game like Skyrim which has locations and Easter eggs and little hidden stuff all over the map. I don't really mind the emptiness too much, though. There is still plenty of stuff to find and do, and the size of the map spaces everything out and makes it feel more like real wilderness, which realistically wouldn't have a ton of stuff around every corner.

@KirbyTheVampire BOTW is the best RPG ive played since Dragons Dogma, infact it feels like Dragons Dogma and plays like Skyrim and looks like Dragon Quest.

Theres a multitude of places its coming from. Most of it atems from the same source. Pavlovic conditioning and learned helplessness at the hands of overbearing pr and marketing of the worst generation, ie 'Gamerbrain'. I will talk about the two main groups i usually see.

1. Assumptions and fall through logic. Most of the people making the empty claims havent even played breath of the wild. They are simply judging off the ridiculous notion that Zelda is 'open world now'. In general they dislike modern open world games, and with pretty good reason. The ubisoft design permeates the industry, as its the cheapest fastest way to crap out games yearly on an assembly line. The marketing is so strong, that even people who dont LIKE that kind of open world design actually believe the absurd narrative that its the ONLY kind of open world game. That if a game is open world it HAS to sacrifice content density for size...

And so thats as far as they think. Open world=empty zeldas open world now therefore breath of the wild is empty. Never mind the fact zelda has ALWAYS been open world. Facts dont matter.

Then there is the other end of the spectrum, those who just cant comprehend not being constantly told what to do. They've been conditioned to desire it. To these people if they arent told to do it, and therefore they didnt see it, it doesnt exist. They have been so conditioned to obey the insipid garbage rules instilled by worst generation design, that even when they are no longer confined, when they are no longer forced to do the one specific thing in the one specific way... They still play that way.

Both these groups have neither understanding nor concept of context or nuance. They will compare two completely different things as 'the same' because of a cosmetic similarity. For example, they will tell you wall jumping in mario 64, where you actually wall jump with your own skills within the rules and physics in the game, is EXACTLY the same thing as a context sensitive event where you stand in front of a wall until a flashing 'push A' prompt appears, and then, all by itself, the character performs a cinematic flashy wall jump animation.

They will argue forever that those things and similar situations are exactly the same. I used to think they being purposefully obtuse. There was simply no way anyone could be so stupid and incapable of basic formative concepts. But recent events have made me realize that I was wrong.

They arent playing dumb so they dont have to admit they were wrong or their argument poor. They just really are that stupid. And you cant fix stupid.

There is a gigantic distinction to be made here. There are areas where breath of the wild is EXTRINSICALLY empty, bit it is never, ever, EVER intrinsically empty.

Skyrim, or really the elder scrolls and all modern open world games since the seventh gen, are ALL almost completely intrinsically empty, they generate a map, and vomit the little event flags over the top of the generated world. If you dont activate the event, it doesnt exist in the world. We called it key jingle design before the seventh gen, and it was generally mocked quite thouroghly. It was like making music without rests. Pure cacophony. Design noise. You activate your event, and you follow the arrow on your map, which will take you the only there is to go, and you do the thing that is exactly the same as the last 20 things you just did, but with a different cutscene and explanation attached to it.

Even in areas without an extrinsic area or event in zelda, your bucket is overflowing with intrinsic options. There is wildlife and fauna constantly underfoot. Do you go hunting and gathering to replenish your ingredient supply? Do you start a fire to roast some of your spoils for immediate use? Do you cut down a tree and see if you can nail that group of bokoblins a mile away for giggles? Oh, it started raining and the land is flooding... Do you start using cryonis to star flipping over old broken gaurdiens for easy extra ancient loot? Oh, someone is running up to a nearby overhang to get out of the rain. Do you barter with them? They give better deals in poor weather, you can make a nice profit off the extra spoils you just hunted.

The rain has stopped and they set off again. Do you follow them, they always go somewhere, might be a place you didnt know about, and stuff always happens to them on the way.

You look around, because unlike in extrinsically focused games, thats actually part of the gameplay in this zelda. And see four points of interest. And about half a dozen ways to get to each one.

You pick the downhill one, and start sheild surfing, and find out this 'large empty space' was actually specifically designed to be a rad sheildboarding run, that puts 1080 to shame.

You find throughout the subsequent hours of the game that you actually completed about half a dozen sidequests during your time through the empty field, as impressed npc's around the world instantly hand over their rewards. In zelda you dont need to extrinsically activate quests to do things, they always intrinsically exist and can be done. The npc's extrinsic quest giving system is just there as a way to let you know they exist.

The game is never empty, and yet you have plenty of room between extrinsic events and areas to build tension and make them rare enough thet actually have some value upon discovery. Thats the strength of intrinsic design.

Went and fully upgraded the wild set , it took long...too bad I don't care it much, now to upgrade other stuff I suppose, if only I had the hero of time set and fierce deity.

@Undead_terror I know you can get the Hero of time set, but how are you supposed to get the fierce deity set? It's not via amiibo is it?

If Breath of the Wild was like Skyrim and Dragon's Dogma it would have like three times the enemies it does now. Let alone Monster Hunter, which is what I want if the series is going to abandon good level design and storytelling. It has to excel at something, and that something oughta be a bunch of different creatures living in different biomes that Link has to actually seek out to upgrade his gear.

@Octane
I wasn't trying to debate you on BotW's "empty" areas (and as others have said, literally no 10 square feet in this game is actually empty). I just thought your oddly personal jab at @BraveSonic was strange. I think you're laboring under some kind of "I need to defend everything not Nintendo" mindset lately and I don't know why. The sensible people on here know that other companies make great games, too.

@BraveSonic The amiibo will probably come out soon as Best Buy leaked it along the skyward sword and twilight princess amiibos, if you can't wait that long, people online are selling NFC chips containing the data, however I wouldn't recommend it unless you NEED that content.

It speaks to subtlety of Breath's design and the deft hand of its developers that the game can wield such a heavy sense of desolation and simultaneously feel so rich and vibrantly organic.

Breath is as empty as it is full; as full as it is empty; as ying as it is yang, and as rhubarb as it is custard. Or something.

Almost never has there been nowhere I've wanted to go, and on almost no journey have I not found a myriad of small delights along the way.

Arguably the Korok seeds could occasionally have had more variety (for example, I feel there's more that could be done with the metal cubes than just matching structures, and even just a few more inventive shapes than rock circles would have been nice), but they still do their job exceptionally well.

Rhubarb. Custard. Ying. Yang. Plums. Tomatoes. Plum tomatoes. Woah.

Korok seeds are not the most engaging puzzles ever after you find your first 50 or so, and if they were removed, then yes, the world would be pretty empty per square mile. But it's still got the most engaging content out of any Zelda game.

I've been thinking about the emptiness of the world, and there's a neat (and also dangerous) thing about that. Because landmarks are far away from each other, and there are numerous sections of empty rock, it can give your brain some breathing room, such that the game doesn't get tiring. I could probably play this game 24 hours straight. If I ever get tired of thinking, or don't feel like doing a shrine puzzle, I just say "forget everything!" and run around with no particular purpose until I'm ready to tackle a problem again. I can just run around and be curious.

@Eric258 Ok I'll try that, thanks.

@shani Good thing I clicked back a few pages. For some reason I don't get alerts when I'm quoted, only when @ mentioned. Anyway, I'm not strictly against scarfing down the likes of 30 apples in the pause menu, but if I were to change some small things in the game, preventing that would be one such thing. It's definitely helpful, but the main issue I have with it is: any enemy (including bosses) in the game becomes trivial if you have an inventory full of heart restoring meals. Add that on top of me having a zillion materials, and Link basically becomes invincible; you'd only die if you were careless/lazy and didn't pause to eat (or I guess if you got one-shot). The Lynel is a perfect example. I think I dodged like, 12% of its attacks, but every time it rammed me, I just paused the game and ate some food to full health.

I like the meals that give defense up as a prep to the battle. It's you getting stocked up before fighting a big foe. Especially with the system allowing one buff at a time, it's a nice strategic choice. Do I go with the health or the defense? Eating one in the middle of battle brings me to the same problems as above.