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

@spizzamarozzi most games based on solving puzzles plays like that. Unless there are multiple different puzzles to solve to get past a certain point so you can just solve one of those and you can somewhat choose how to advancxe because of that. Other than that getting stuck if you cannot figure out what you have to do to advance is not a problem of Zelda as a series, it is a obvious characteristic that all adventure games with an emphasys on puzzle have in common. If somebody did not want this kind of gameplay he should have played another kind of game

@StuTwo That is true to an extent, but again, that's something Skyrim does much better. In Zelda, you know exactly who you are, you have one ultimate goal you're striving for that the game picks for you, and there's no moral dilemmas or decision making of any kind, really. You couldn't choose to join up with the Yiga Clan, for example, or become a pickpocket. In Skyrim, you're an anonymous person that no one's ever heard of, and you can create your character as you see fit, all the way down to his race, name, gender, and what he looks like. After that, you're dropped into the world, and you can make actual decisions regarding who you want to be. Do you want to be an evil necromancer who runs around killing people for fun? You can do that. Do you want to be a sellsword? You can do that. Do you want to be a thief? You can do that. You could also do all of the above combined, and countless other things. In BoTW, you're forced to be Link the hero, and you can't deviate from that path at all. That's not necessarily a bad thing, because not every game needs to be a choose your own adventure, but I really don't think that being a true roleplaying game is something that Zelda does well at all.

I finally beat Thunderblight Ganon last night! That whole Divine Beast Vah Naboris was really hard and tedious for me and made me not want to play the game. It took me a month to get through it all because I would just stop and play other games. So glad to be out of it so I can go back to the normal flow of the game. IMO that was too much too soon and kind of killed it for me. Anyway it did feel GREAT to finally beat him.

In what way are they functionally different?

You can wear stronger armor, but so can you do in the typical RPG. There isn't anything radically different about Link from start to finish.

Except for his health points (hearts) and stamina points (stamina wheel) which are influenced by how you've played and the choices you've taken. Like in every other RPG.

Most RPGs place most emphasis on levelling up stats associated with the character themselves but there are plenty of RPGs that basically have no emphasis on character levels and all of the emphasis on weapons and armour. Just like BoTW.

So, no it will never be a RPG. It's a Action Adventure game, just like most of the previous titles.

It's a stats light RPG with skill in action sequences in place of random dice rolls. So it's not Dragon Quest or Fallout but I've never claimed it to be so. If it doesn't fit into your rigid ideas of what an RPG is then I'm sorry but it doesn't stop BoTW being an RPG.

GTA isn't a RPG just because it borrows elements. Mega Man isn't a RPG because you attain more Energy after defeating a Robot Master.

Of course Mega Man is action platformer game - those are its defining characteristics and I don't think anyone would seriously claim it to be an RPG.

GTA on the other hand is definitely an RPG. It enthusiastically embraces the idea of inhabiting a role. You can even get fat in GTA:SA if you don't exercise.

I would be very reluctant to call what happens in the overworld in the average Zelda game a "puzzle".
What happens in the dungeons - fine - might be considered a series of puzzles because you have the tools, you have the elements, you have different options, you have to figure out ways to put them together and find a solution - that is a "puzzle".

But in the overworld? Nah. Most of the people who play Zelda get stuck in the overworld because they have no clue where to go - which makes it as much a colouring book as it is a "puzzle". Going through a series of caves because somebody put a boulder halfaway between point A and B, or crawling inside a hole hidden in a wall, or doing a long and complicated trading sequence that ends in a very specific pixel of sea hidden behind the rocks - there's absolutely nothing "puzzling" in that.

Oh sheesh did this really evolve into the rpg debate

Says who?

Are you setting a minimum complexity threshold for an RPG?

You cannot level up certain stats, and avoid others like in RPGs.

You can go into the final battle with like 5 stamina rings and 3 hearts. So, yes, you can level up your stamina stats and avoid your HP.

I cannot become a thief in Zelda, gain or lose reputation, or affect the outside world around me in a profound and meaningful matter.

If being able to affect the world around you in a profound and meaningful manner is a key point of an RPG then there aren't many out there! Zelda does as well at it as other games. You can stop the rain in Zora's domain or stop the various cataclysms inflicted by the divine beasts. You can build a village and recruit NPCs to move there.

Which brings us to the next ingredient that is lacking; the world, and the deep interconnectedness with the assumed role you're playing out.

Side quests aren't meaningful, and they don't build upon you and the game's world.

In your opinion. I have a different opinion.

As for your last point. Well, then these games aren't RPGs. Even a Action RPG series like Ys contain progression in both of these areas. Hell, even The Adventure of Link does this.

And so too does BoTW. It's just that the progression of your character is depreciated and secondary to progression of gear.

Well, by your definition, why not? There is character progression of Mega Man since Mega Man 2. Your Energy-meter gets larger as you defeat enemies. You can use certain powers to protect yourself too, just like Breath of the Wild. Why isn't this a RPG then?

Well your energy meter doesn't get larger as you defeat enemies. You gain new powers but your health remains fixed.

To be honest though I don't consider it as an RPG because I don't see the act of role playing to be anything other than very peripheral to the game.

You can believe anything you want, but I thoroughly disagree with all that has been said.

That's the great thing about the internet - there's always someone to disagree with and just because we have different opinions doesn't mean that one of us must be right and one wrong. I don't really have much more to add (and I won't) since it doesn't really matter one way or another. At the end of the day it's a great game, I felt like I was playing a role when playing it and I felt like my experience was unique. If you consider it to be an RPG or not doesn't really influence how I look back on it.

RPGs aren't labels you can put easily on games that merely contain elements from the genre. And it' not strange, the RPG has been a very influential genre. But it is a very strict one too.

I disagree. It's an incredibly flexible one. Even within the confines of games that are basically Dragon Quest clones there's so much variation in focus.

In the 90s everyone knew what a RPG was.

Do you really believe that?

@bitleman It was a 50+ hour, €40 game. Not too different than a lot of stuff we see on the retail market. Anyway, nobody criticises Kirby for its non-existent story, or Mario Kart. The difference is that those games never set out to tell a big, epic tale.

@spizzamarozzi People get stuck in Zelda games? When and where? At what point? They always tell you where to go next. And if it isn't straight up said in game, it's not that difficult to figure out where to go next. I've never had any problem with that.

@Octane I agree with @spizzamarozzi about the overworld, I think it's an often overlooked improvement of Breath of the Wild compared to previous Zelda games. In BotW the overworld not only has a variety of animals, plants, and enemies, but also has puzzles. The overworld doesn't exist solely to be filler between places like in previous Zelda games, but can actually be interacted with and has its own puzzles that can be solved. That's a huge improvement over the overworlds in previous Zelda games, especially Twilight Princess (which had the biggest overworld in a Zelda game before BotW), which was big for the sake of being big but had nothing noteworthy in it besides acting as filler between destinations.

@Octane

@shadow-wolf Every Zelda game has had plants... And I wouldn't describe the enemies in BOTW with the word ''variety''. 80% was Bokoblin, Lizalfos and Moblin, the rest were Keese, Chu-Chu, Octorock (and their elemental varieties), with a few copy-pasted mini-bosses here and there. I'd argue that in a game this big, it needed way more variety. No area had unique enemies, Molduga was the only exception.

And Korok seeds hardly count as puzzles. After the first twenty or thirty Korok seeds, I had seen them all. What else is left? 10 or 20 overworld shrine puzzles? I wouldn't say BOTW had significantly more overworld puzzles than previous Zelda games, especially considering the size of BOTW's map is way bigger than any other Zelda game.

@Hawkstream It was a 20-minute dungeon and the boss fight didn't last longer than 5 minutes... What part did you find difficult?

Oh boy, could you get more NERD than that?! As a matter of fact yeah, people do get stuck in Zelda from time to time. Personally, I had to look up a guide to complete at least three or four installments. Granted, most of the times it was simply me not understanding where I was supposed to go because I missed a line of text or stopped playing for 2 days and couldn't remember where the heck I was heading to. Other times it was stuff that makes absolutely no sense, like the Trading Quest in Link's Awakening or the last quest in Wind Waker. I am glad they got rid of the old overworld formula for BotW because it was becoming the most stale and trite aspect of the franchise.
Now if you want to go from point A to point B, you have to physically find a way to do it, rather than wander for hours until you come to Z, then into X, then pass P on to D and then maybe you get to point B.

However, I did manage to beat Zelda 1 without a guide nor any help outside of the game manual and in-game hints, as I found that game to be much more straighforward and less cryptic than any other Zelda.

@spizzamarozzi You get the IN-credible chart from Beedle in a postbox after you've saved Aryll. It shows the locations of the eight Triforce maps and, when you've translated them, the shards too: https://www.zeldadungeon.net/wiki/images/f/fd/IN-credible-Cha...

I dunno, but I don't think the games are that convoluted. I've never had to use a guide to beat the games.

Aren't you guys mostly criticising the game for what it's not ? "not enough like previous Zelda games", "not enough like other RPGs"...

To me this game got great scores because it surprised people. So yes, of course, if you get on it with very specific expectations, there's plenty to be disapointed about.

@Tibob Well, it's not exactly strange for fans of the Zelda series to be disappointed that this game is so different from past Zelda games. People like the traditional Zelda formula, so to have a fairly unique series like Zelda made into an open world game that's so similar to other open world games has to feel a bit disappointing for some people, and I completely understand. Change is quite often a good thing, but a lot of people liked the standard Zelda formula more, and there's nothing wrong with that.

It would be like if Bethesda took The Elder Scrolls and made it into a linear puzzle game like past Zelda games were. People would certainly be upset about it, even if the new formula is still fun.

@Octane I agree that enemy variety could be improved, but there were also a wide variety of creatures in the world that made it more lively than previous Zelda games. And while some overworld puzzles in BotW were easy (often the Korok ones) the Kass riddle shrines were pretty awesome and great examples of how the puzzles were organically weaved into the overworld. I'm struggling to remember any overworld puzzles in previous games, besides a couple in Wind Waker.

@Tibob I don't think people here are criticizing it based on what it's not but because some things it tried ended up not being as great as the corresponding aspects (from previous Zelda games) that they replaced. What some people I think are forgetting is that quite a number of aspects of BotW are much better than corresponding aspects from previous Zelda games (expanded combat, increased gameplay options, voice-acting, etc.), and even in regards to the ones that perhaps are not as good (like some people regard the Divine Beasts) they still are a very welcome breath of fresh air.

@meleebrawler Yeah that's true, that is something to keep in mind whenever one sees a 10/10 for a game.

The voice acting was pretty bad...

Voice acting only really helps a story when it's good. Otherwise, text works just fine.

Lol, you're not even paying attention. You can't make believe like that when Breath of the Wild reviewed the way it did. Most reviewers don't know a damn thing about writing so they give games with terrible incomplete stories a pass.

@MegaTen BOTW not an RPG but games like FALLOUT and BORDERLANDS, games in first person view and guns are role playing, right? You must be under 30.