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Topic: Breath of the wild extremely overrated or am I missing something?

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NNGaming900

Firstly I want to say that I am not bashing or hating on the game, just giving my thoughts. Overall it’s pretty a good game, but 10/10 one of the best video games of all time? It doesn’t even scratch the surface of getting anywhere near that.

I failed to see the hype surrounding it after my first playthrough when the game first released back in 2017 so I just moved on from it. A year and a half or so later I decided to go back and play some more and again wasn’t at all wow’d by it. Now three years later after its initial launch I decided to have an entire new playthrough and give it yet another chance and I still feel the exact same way about it as I did three years ago.

The huge open world is impressive but let’s be honest, is it any more impressive than the many elder scroll games that came before it? I myself was disappointed by the open world route they took, to me it’s trying too hard to be something like Skyrim and that’s exactly what it feels like, an open world game similar to Skyrim just with a Zelda theme. But it is what it is, I’m fine with the open world design it’s self even if I would’ve preferred a regular home console Zelda game as we haven’t had any since the Wii era.

I’ll now speak a bit about the main issues I have with the game, which is quite a lot, all games have flaws but BOTW has a ton and that’s why I fail to see why anyone considers it even close to a perfect game. I hear everyone speaking about how beautiful the graphics look and yes I do agree the graphics themselves look very good, there is a lot of jagged edges and even some blurry textures too. It’s still nice looking though, but I do feel even the look of the game is overhyped, it looks good but there is PS3/Xbox 360 games that look almost as good. I’ve experienced some lag too, a ton in handheld mode but even docked I’ve noticed the game lag at certain points in the game. Also, why is B sprint and X jump? It’s very awkward to handle when trying to run and jump, it’s not really an issue though as controls can be changed.

The main story is so one dimensional and boring compared to most other Zelda games, it lacks depth and just falls way short, the temples and dungeons are also pretty much non existent. I honestly feel that this game could be a completely difference franchise just by changing the characters and items, it feels like just another open world game. The weapons break way too frequently, it’s awful at the start of the game where your weapons consistently break after just a few hits, I found myself switching weapons after or during each enemy(s) encounter, this obviously gets better as you progress but even later on they still break very easily, same with shields but to a lesser extent. There’s more things I could point out but I don’t want to go on all day about the negatives regarding BOTW.

I’m convinced that if a very similar game came out on another platform like the PS4 (Zelda theme replaced for something different), then it wouldn’t be popular at all, let alone considered one of the greatest games ever. Overall the game is nothing special but a pretty solid game I’d give it a 6.5/10. Is there something I’m still missing? Do you agree/disagree? Let me know your guys thoughts!

NNGaming900

StuTwo

You’re missing the “😉” emoji from your post.

StuTwo

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Zeldafan79

It innovated zelda in the same way ocarina of time did. That's why it gets so much praise. It's like nothing the franchise has ever seen before. Believe me I've played every single game and it's pretty darn ground breaking and feels totally fresh. Lately the formula had been getting stale and BOTW breathed new life into the series so yeah you're missing something. Why else do you think it's getting a direct sequel? The people wanted more and Nintendo is more than happy to oblige! I do agree with you on the story though. There almost isn't one. The next one needs more focus on story for sure.

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Illusion

Your opinion isn't wrong. Its just contrary to the majority of gamers. That's okay, I experience it a lot myself. I do consider BOTW to be one of the greatest games of all time, but could not get into Oblivion, Skyrim, or Outer Worlds (gave each a 10 hour try and was too bored to go on) despite also including Fallout 3, 4, New Vegas, and the Dragon Age trilogy amongst my greatest games of all time.
My opinion on those is contrary to what the vast majority of others think. Its not wrong, just different.
I could type you a couple pages about how BOTW is the best Zelda game to me, but it wouldn't make your opinion change. Your opinion is valid and yours. Play more Skyrim if that's your fave. Nothing wrong with that. @NNGaming900

Edited on by Illusion

Illusion

Dragonslacker1

Hi @NNGaming everything you have touched on I agree with. I do think it is a good game. I played back when it was released on Wii u and gave up after a few hours after being overwhelmed with the freedom. I went back to it and started again got a bit further and got so frustrated in a story mission to get those 20 shock arrows before the first dungeon, I couldn’t beat that lynel. Didn’t realise u had to stealth all the way around. Anyway I didthen play to completion. The 4 main dungeons are very dull, and I would say the best thing about the shrines is scanning the horizon and seeing one in the distance and trying to get there! They are playable and quite enjoyable to solve but not up to Zelda standard. I came away thinking yeah good game when u get into it but not deserving of all the praise, and yeah the story is just like an afterthought. X x x being in lockdown I have revisited the game from the start and taken my time. It’s nice roaming with a horse. All the breakable weapons are there so u don’t use the same all the time just to give the combat a bit of variety, but still didn’t like it! The little side quests are generally awful, find this and bring it here! I absolutely hated the fact that I couldn’t find the last 10 shrines after what felt like combing the map twice over! That ball in impas house I would never have gotten that if it weren’t for YouTube, because u had to do 2 side quests before it , and I had long given up doing those! X x x I can see why they made this game though, because it is very free, but I prefer the linear Zeldas. X x x this time I just wanted to get the 120 shrines to get the link outfit, even tho now I’m not even gonna use it, sense of completion I guess x x. Having said all of this I did e joy it on the whole, and in a few years I know I will revisit it again x x x Not a masterpiece for me though but still looking forward to the sequel to see what Nintendo will do next. Take care x

Dragonslacker1

Maxz

I’ve never been so utterly fascinated, transfixed by, or immersed in a video game world to the degree I have been with BoTW. There are plenty of games with expansive overworlds, but I’ve never played another so masterfully designed to elicit that addictive sense of exploration and discovery as this one. The game deftly stings together acts of serendipity, interspersed with hauntingly beautiful sections of solitary traversal. The way the landscape is sculpted means you constantly need to be working in tune with it, not only to move across it, but also to successfully carry out ambushes or escape threats. Hyrule is not just a dramatic set piece; its topography and terrain are tools to be harnessed throughout the adventure, in conjunction with the more literal contents of your inventory and the Sheikah slate’s gizmos and gadgets. It all just comes together so satisfyingly, and can’t I think of another game to make the basic acts of travelling across and engaging with the landscape so rich and compelling.

So yeah, I really loved the game. But there’s no pressure to force yourself to pretend you like something because many other people do. If it’s a 6.5 for you, then that’s what it is. But for me, the game left me feeling so, so grateful that we live in a world where video games even exist at all.

Edited on by Maxz

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NNGaming900

@Zeldafan79 But in what way is it groundbreaking? I see the praise it gets everywhere but never reasons why. Ocarina of time was innovative because it was pretty much the first of its kind, it set the standard of how 3D games should be going forward, whereas breath of the wild has the same formula Morrowind had 15 years prior to BOTW’s release

NNGaming900

NNGaming900

@Illusion I actually agree with you in terms of other open world games, I myself couldn’t get into Skyrim but absolutely love the Fallout games (3 and NV). BOTW is a good game no doubt, but to me that’s all, it’s nothing special

NNGaming900

NNGaming900

@Dragonslacker1 I agree, a lot of people have said that the time first time you play BOTW there’s a certain charm to it but I just didn’t feel impressed at all. It is a good play though, I just really don’t see anything special that hasn’t been done already years prior

NNGaming900

MS7000

Oh boy, this is convenient, I just typed something very similar on the PushSquare forum funnily enough. To quickly summarise:

-Fantastic game, but not a good Zelda
-Story sacrificed to short "memory" cutscenes to ensure greatest freedom of exploration.
-Shrines make sense in big open world compared to heart-pieces, but just a puzzle in a room, no real exploration
-Dungeons are meh; too small to explore, go to these 5 points then fight generic Ganon variant, no incentive to open chests due to dungeons not really requiring keys, and no new items to expand abilities.
-Enemies are limited in variety (bokoblins, moblins, lizalfos and octoroks make up nearly all your enemy encounters)
-Music is mostly ambient, which makes sense, but utterly forgettable for the most part for me (only real good track for me was Hyrule Castle)
-Feels like re-imagined Zelda 1 which is cool, but not what I want for future Zeldas.

I don't hate this game, I have put over 275 hours through two different playthroughs (one normal, one master mode), and the exploration and world itself is great but I do agree that it is not the best Zelda game and probably would not have done as well without the Zelda name.

Edit: Changed "goof" to "good. Damn letters being next to each other on the keyboard.

Edited on by MS7000

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Zeldafan79

There's alot of hugely popular games i didn't love as much as everybody else. FF VII, Xenoblade, and yes skyrim too. I like them okay and i can see why they're so popular but i don't think they are the best games ever made. It all depends on who's playing them. Oh and as someone above said yeah BOTW's ambient music was kind of a let down. I was like where's all the heroic themes like when you're running around in hyrule field? It's too quiet around here i said to myself. Kinda lame I'll admit.

Edited on by Zeldafan79

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DevlinMandrake

To address a couple of specific points:

I think the graphics work perfectly for the game, like a more grown up version of Wind Waker's cell-shading. I like a lot of different art styles though and it's very much a personal thing.

For me the world beats that in Skyrim, etc (with the possible exception of Morrowind which is one of the few fantasy games that didn't feel like another boring Tolkien with the serial numbers filed-off kind of thing). BotW is essentially a post-apocalyptic version of Hyrule and I think the open world nature captured that really well. It was tons of fun to explore and freedom of the open world let you discover how badly everything had been wrecked by yourself. With a more linear setup there's a tendency to hand-hold the player and overdo exposition which wouldn't have had as much impact for me.
I also loved the plot and thought the minimalist way of telling it via the unlocked memories worked brilliantly.

As to the weapon durability thing, I know loads of people seem to hate it. I found it really infuriating at first, but after a while I started to see it as an interesting gameplay hook. It fits into the post-apoc nature of the setting and also forces you to vary your tactics, sometimes you won't have the right style of weapon to hand for what you're up against but for me that adds to the challenge and forces you away from sticking to a single weapon (Master Sword being an obvious exception). I found that even after I got the Master Sword, I still had more fun by switching weapons regularly and keeping that in reserve for what I'd call "proper" fights.

The lack of big dungeons was a bit disappointing but I thought the shrines were very well done and at least you don't have to backtrack through the same dungeon multiple times throughout the game which can be a drag.

The one thing I really wish they had included was the Hookshot. I think that + glider would be an amazing way to travel around so hopefully they add that in to the sequel.

I understand that BotW may not feel very Zelda to you, but looking at it from my perspective, it's an evolution of the Wind Waker which was also very open world and a lot of the gameplay choices update the standard formula quite nicely.

DevlinMandrake

WoomyNNYes

@NNGaming900 Yeah, the breaking weapons early in the game was frustrating, initially. I did two things to deal with breaking weapons. I farmed arrows, and fought with bombs, saving weapons for criucial moments. The lab in Hateno village upgrades bomb power & shortens recharge time. Then after a while, I found more durable weapons. Sneaking into the castle and exploring is amazing, I thought. Navigating the Lost Woods was amazing. I dunno... There were too many things I loved.... Getting the tower at the Citadel, with all those flying guardians. Fighting guardians was scary & fun. I loved the guardians.

But, if you weren't feeling it, you weren't feeling it. I wish i loved turn based games, because some look amazing & charming, like nino kuni & dragon quest 11. But i couldn't get into them.

I skipped the ps3, ps4 console period. So, when I played botw, that style of game was new to me. I liked Wind Waker. Parts of Twilight Princess were amazing, but I couldn't stay into it. Then too much time passed, and I forgot what my objectives were, and was lost & dead in the water.

One great feature of botw is the mission log in the pause menu. I could always figure out who I talked to last, what the objective was, and where it was on the map.

Edited on by WoomyNNYes

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gcunit

@Maxz Thanks, you saved me writing a wall of text.

I went on holiday last year to the Isle of Wight, staying right near the coast. Going in land just slightly I had to climb a big hill. From up there I could see across most of the island, the different lighting effects from an evening setting sun on the topography making me stop and take it all in. In the medium distance, maybe 4km away, I could see what looked like a stone arch in a valley, and a bit further, up on one the peaks, I saw a stone needle. Good old fashioned proper landmarks. Immediately I felt compelled to run to them and explore what they were and how I might reach by them. It reminded me so much of playing Breath of the Wild as I was running there, navigating my way across unknown landscape that never stops to inspire wonder and draw me to explore it.

Playing any other open world game feels like I'm playing a video game. Playing Breath of the Wild I was so immersed in the landscape that it was an experience elevated beyond any normal sense of playing a game. The freedom to go wherever I wanted was unparalleled in my experience.

Maybe there are other games out there that make you feel that immersed (I know I can get really immersed in a driving game when focusing on my entry and exit from turns lap after lap), but I've never had that thrill and joy from an adventure game before.

When people suggest the weapon durability is some major flaw in the game it just reminds me that some people are just on completely different pages to me. Sure it was frustrating at times, but in the context of the true sense of adventure that game gave me it's just such a minor thing.

What I say to anyone who doesn't 'rate' Breath of the Wild that much is this: find me another game that has been received so well by so many people in the last 20 years.

Edited on by gcunit

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bLiNdSiDe82

Quick and easy answer, you are missing something. Play it past 10 hours and you'll see. Otherwise your taste may just differ. But it's by no means under-rated.

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bLiNdSiDe82

@bLiNdSiDe82 Just re read your post and see you've played through. I just have to disagree with your assessment man. No way that game is anything close to 6.5. 10/10 all the way.

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NNGaming900

@bLiNdSiDe82 Like I said, I’ve played 2 full playthrough a so not under 10 hours lol. May I ask what reasons you have for it being 10/10?

NNGaming900

bLiNdSiDe82

@NNGaming900 Which I acknowledged in my follow up post. My reasons for it being a 10/10 are irrelevant to the context of this thread, however I will indulge you. First and foremost, it's captivating nature. Of course this is not absolute for everyone, and ratings in and of themselves are subjective to the reviewer's view of the game, but BotW captivated me, along with many others in a world that we didn't want to put down. There was consistently one more shrine to find, one more korok seed to discover, one more mountain to climb. In it's very nature the game due to it's sheer scope and freedom of how you played the game made it on of the most non-linear, engrossing games in the history of gaming. Due to this alone, I believe it justifies a 10/10. However when you pile on the beauty of the art, the design of the characters, memories, themes, and puzzles themselves, you find a game that did very little wrong. The things you point out originally that you didn't like didn't objectively qualify the game as flawed in any sense, they were just a matter of preference. But all the systems worked well, there are still today new ways people are discovering they can accomplish tasks, and judged purely on that, I think it's a 10/10. You can disagree and that's fine. But you opened the can of worms and asked for opinions and you got just that.

I'll answer specific questions you asked below and justify my response to them:

"The huge open world is impressive but let’s be honest, is it any more impressive than the many elder scroll games that came before it?"

I would contend that yes, far more impressive due to the fact that it was much more seamless, streamlined, and played objectively better. You reference elder scroll games, which were great games, but glitchy and flawed due to their nature of being to big for the developer to get right many of the gameplay things that make a game fun. Grand Theft Auto, another open world game, along with any other you can mention had far more bugs, and was far more restricting at than BotW after the initial tutorial.

You then go on to spend a whole paragraph about graphics and weapons breaking. Look, I get it, we all have preferences, but your argument is weak, and there are many games that come out without being titled Zelda on PS4/Xbox that score much higher than 6.5 with broken gameplay systems. Just because it's not the Zelda you wanted, doesn't make it a bad game. In fact it's one of the least glitchy masterfully put together mechanics wise games in recent memory. Everything just works, and it works right. I have no problem with you thinking its over rated, I just disagreed, which is what you asked for.

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Beaucine

Mm, Breath of the Wild is more eccentric than it seems. That's why you either click with it — or you don't.

In most open world games, you have a vast landscape, but you're really interacting with NPCs or enemies. In Breath of the Wild, you're mostly interacting with the environment itself, dealing with climbing, weather, physics, resource gathering, cooking, and stamina systems. In the early game, climbing a mountain is strategic. You need to find ledges on your way up in order to to rest. You have to mentally sketch out your route.

Typical hallmarks of the open world genre are deemphasized. Looting, for instance. You eventually have more rupees than you know what to do with. And all your weapons break, so when you find a truly good one, you barely use it. In fact, the best use I ever gave my weapons was taking advantage of elemental swords (fire or ice) to explore certain (cold or hot) areas of the world — that is, exploration instead of combat.

As for the graphics, what people praise is the art direction. No one's under the impression that it's technically cutting edge. (Don't forget this was developed for the Wii U.) Within the Switch library, and from a purely technical standpoint, Mario Odyssey is clearly superior. But I'll take Breath of the Wild's art any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Beaucine

NNGaming900

@bLiNdSiDe82 Yes I’m aware you mentioned it in your follow up post, just confirming the fact that I’ve had two full playthroughs since you missed that the first time around. How is your reasons for it being a 10/10 game irrelevant? You posted saying it’s a 10/10 game in a discussion about how good of a game BOTW is, asking why you rate it so highly is as relevant as can be.

Each to their own but to me freedom with lots of things to find doesn’t automatically make a game 10/10, in fact it is completely pointless having a ton of content if the gameplay and storyline is on the dull side compared to previous entries in the franchise. I prefer quality content over quantity! The art design is indeed nice but as I’ve said earlier, it barely scrapes past something you’d find on last gen consoles. You mentioned the puzzles as a positive but is the puzzles are too easy and fall extremely flat compared to other Zelda games, I don’t even think that’s up for debate. You say the things I mentioned don’t define quality, so are you telling me that the story in a Zelda game isn’t important to you?

You can certainly debate whether elder scrolls games are better or worse, comes down to personal preference, but if we are taking facts, Morrowind is a huge open world game somewhat similar to BOTW (some would argue a better game) and that came out 15 years prior to BOTW. I didn’t say even once that it’s a bad game? In fact I made it clear it’s a very good game, just nowhere near as good as people claim. You say my argument for it being overrated is flawed, yet you imply a Zelda game doesn’t even need a decent storyline to be 10/10 and bring up the puzzles as one the main reasons you rate it 10/10 lol.

NNGaming900

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