Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Judge the game on what you bought, as that is the product you spent money on.

I find it hard to compare games when judging a title, as saying "well one game did x aspect better" isnt saying "Heres how the product im discussing does it. How do i feel about how this product does this thing? Is it fun, well thought out?"

Its saying "Well x game did it this way and i think thats better". Cool. How does that affect your opinion of the product you are discussing? It could, but its not a crotique of the thing in question, its praise to another seperate product.

I believe something should be judged on what it is, not what its peers are.

@NEStalgia If we're gonna consider Zelda's genre, I'd say story is a very complementary part of the action-adventure genre. But still, the game is great for what it is...

@-Green- I think you're referring to open-ended conclusions that leave things unanswered for the reader to use his or her imagination to answer. I don't think botw achieved the same thing. Other than the landscape, there wasn't that much mystery to begin with.

Again, I'm sorry if my pessimism is ruining it for everyone else; please feel free to stop me at any point. >.>

@FGPackers No its not odd to like something someone else doesnt.

But id argue that you can still compare the quality of side quests. Its not about genre and they are the same regardless besides zeldas heavy aspect on puzzles. Besides both worlds Witcher and Zelda have a similar theme. Beating the darkness in a world that was almost swallowed by it. Both are nothing new today. But its about the execution.

The thing with Zeldas sidequests is many dont seem to have an aspect or message or anything at all to them besides getting stuff done. If you like them they dont even have to.

Wait you can't have full stamina and health? What the heck, that's gonna bother the crap out of me. Oh well. I guess I'll stick to full stamina

Also, I know it's easy to brush off all criticism because some of you love the game, but you can't brush off legitimate critique. The game can be vastly improved in many ways. And we are free to discuss it here. And so far everyone has been rather reasonable.

@Nicolaison The first game had less story than BotW. The second one tried to have more, though it failed to. The third had maybe about as much. Ocarina never really had much story, it's only in hindsight and all the fanfic piecing things together that made it seem like it had a lot more story than it did, but if you go back and play it, most of the story we "know" was just implied but never actually presented. Which all isn't surprising, those were all Miyamoto games, and he's always been firmly against too much story in games. But it was always an action adventure.

The more entailed stories started with MM. Neither approach is invalid, of course, but it's proof that the genre can stand on its own with or without a ton of story. Zelda as a game was inspired by Miyamoto's childhood exploration of caves in the woods. Thus the free-form roaming and "find what you find as you find it and use your imagination" kind of gameplay is pretty consistent with the series original design idea. It's really the very original "open world' game, long before it became a whole genre. It was always a kind of shame that it didn't stay that way into the SNES, despite the SNES entry being amazing and timeless.

The majority of side quests suck in this game, imo. Many felt trivial or lacking in general reward. I still have a huge list of quests to do mostly because they're fetch quests or something similar.

I'm mixed on it myself atm. I can see where the writers were going with it, but I'm not sure if they really did it reasonably and effectively.

Speaking of endings, I'm assuming the two separate endings are if you fight Ganon with all the beasts and another if you fight him without them?

@Octane rewards can't even be that much high. I think they got to be putted in the right context: it's all based on exploration, not on side quests. And that's one reason because comparison with TW3 can't be made. I found 2 gold rupees in the same place just by exploring to make an example. And i had to beat a Lynel to get them. Maybe it could be a side quest, but that's another story. What i mean is that if reward are that "bad" there's a reason to it. I did half of the map and i should have gems for maybe almost 10k rupees, if not more. Let's not talk about all the other things i have. If side quests don't give you reasons to do them it's not that huge problem, they're not important like in TW3

@Jhena saying that TW3 and Zelda are same genre is COMPLETELY wrong. They are not. One is Action RPG, other is Action Adventure. In this 2 genres side quests can have really a big different importance, and this is right the case. And infact one game is HEAVILY based on side quests and their story. The other absolutely not. That's quite a difference

@Nicolaison Those aren't varied. The first example is literally another picture-taking quest, except you follow the old guy for like 30 seconds and then run ahead and take the picture. The second one I haven't played, but killing monsters doesn't sound that deep, either. I was just hoping for more interesting stuff than the same things over and over. Some were better than others, but they were all very much the same. Having some fodder quests is one thing, but having literally all of the side quests be fodder quests is a no no for me.

Also, I don't get all the people in this thread hating that people have some criticisms about the game. Is there a "positive feedback only" rule in this thread or something? I think it's safe to say we all really like the game, so we shouldn't get blasted for saying things we don't like about it.

@KirbyTheVampire one thing is saying: i don't like this aspect, it could have been better in this way. Another is saying: i don't like this game, so reviews are not good and game is bad. It should not have the love that is getting and other games, with BIG cons, are better because side quests...

@FGPackers I don't care what other games do. If they don't feel rewarding, then that's an issue, that's not a design choice. They obviously want you to do the side quests, otherwise they wouldn't be in the game. I just don't think they're all great side quests, because I don't get a lot of enjoyment out of a good chunk of them.

@Nicolaison Sorry, didn't see you responded. An open ended ending is not the same thing as an anticlimactic ending. They're not mutually exclusive or anything, though.

@FGPackers Its not important what the marketing tells you what a game is. You are journeying a free fantasy world (by horse) almost corrupted by darkness. You become stronger. Hearts, stamina, hp whatever. Yeah your leveling in witcher i give you that which (only) gives you more freedom in the way you get stronger. You even brew things in both to make you stronger. In both games you level your equipment. Its no secret that Zelda becomes more and more rpg. Zelda is just a light rpg with the focus on puzzles.

And like i said before the genre has at least in this case nothing to do with what you do in the quest. Besides you get rewards in both games.

What I assume people dont like about Zeldas quests is because they are mostly the worst possible quests games give us. The kind of "Hey you! Yeah you come here and do me a favor (please).

What difference besides the amount of fluff and quality in writing do you see? If you answer genre then tell me what the genre changes in those quests.

@Jhena the difference as i said is in the importance that side quests have in the games. One is heavily focused on this, one not. And the genre difference has a kind of relevance here because side quests have a particular reason in an Action RPG and another one in an Action Adventure. But again, the main thing is how much importance they have in the two games for how developers thought them.

Just to say a simple example: i tend to explore a lot and all of the times i already have mats needed to complete them. Only ones i have to do are "kill", "photo" and so. And considering how much i explore they are a good little nice way to distract me from doing it. And that's because this game is about its world, its exploration. Not on its side quests. And that's for rewards also: for example i found 2 gold rupees in some ruins after i beat a Lynel. Was it a side quest? No. Could it be one side quest? Yes. Would it change the game just for some of this? Cmon...

@FGPackers Ok i give you that the side quests are unimportant in Zelda which was kinda my point^^
Their quality can still be compared important or not. A sidequest is a sidequest.

You cant really mean that good sidequests wouldnt change a game? Or did you just mean getting rewards?

But id argue that a well told siequest is the reward. Like puzzle solving in the shrines is the reward and not what the dead monks give you with their last (breaths?)
The way is the goal.

@Jhena again: it's not a thing that you can compare, especially with TW3. It's a context matter that can't be talked. It's like saying: what if Michael Jordan played now or in the 60s. There are differences that are too much big to make a comparison, even on quality. If a developer put a lot of effort in side quests because a game is based on that, you can't compare with a game developed on its world and puzzles (perhaps with a total different physics engine that is absolutely non existant in all the major open worlds -TW3 too-, another thing that make this 2 games not possible to compare) and not its side quests. As i said initially you can dislike them for a particular reason. But that's not good when people do other kind of things comparing what is not comparable. As everything in a game side quests change it if they are central in it, not if they are not central. And about the way is the reward: in TW3 the way is side quests, in Zelda is its entire world with Shrines, with all the differences that there are

@FGPackers It is based more on the world and the gameplay than the sidequests, but the sidequests are still there, and it's a bummer that they're all the worst possible kind of sidequest. I honestly think the only people who could find them consistently fun and the fact that they're all fodder quests a positive are people who are new to the open world genre. At least throw like 10-15 quests with something resembling stories and memorable characters into the mix to change up the monotony of random person #83 saying "Hey! Go there and kill that thing/get me 10 of this thing".

I understand that the focus isn't on the sidequests, but it doesn't change the fact that they're not very enjoyable at all for a lot of people.

There's some lame sidequests I appreciate. This doesn't apply to all of them, but some of them are simply "Get me X of this item," and I find I don't have X of that item. Rather than spending minutes on tedious tasks, all I have to do is simply go do other things, and remember that when I obtain X of that item, I have to return to that spot. It gives me another thing to do without feeling tedious. The tedious ones, however, I tend to avoid.

I only meant that quest B was more exciting than quest A. And that solving Kass's riddles is awesome. And I haven't felt like I've been blasted with criticisms yet. Just solid counterarguments.

No, it's from doing or not doing the memories quest.
@NEStalgia, All true, all true. I was just expecting more from this iteration, what with the voice-acting and all. But it doesn't desperately need it.
@-Green-, Oh, I see. I guess I don't like anticlimactic endings, then, unless done for comedy.

I never got too bummed out by the side quests as I'd usually completed most of them just by turning up. I kind of think of the 'Side Quests' and 'Shrine Quests' as being in the same boat though, and while the former were often pretty generic tasks with pretty generic rewards (with exceptions), the latter were often really interesting, creative, and involved (with exceptions). The Kass quests in particular were nearly always really neat environmental puzzles, and I enjoyed them hugely. And who could forget the events atop Lanyru?

So lumping them together brings up the overall quality of side quests to my mind, the shrine quests often being very inventive mini-adventures with meaningful rewards, and the actual side quests being usually light excursions or collectathons with some sort of token, non-essential reward for you efforts.

This however makes them very easy to pass up or postpone without penalty, and the quest log always kept a good track of them, making them very easy to return to. From my experience, the value of the side quests isn't what they reward you with, but in what they show you from attempting them. For example, the Leviathan bones quest is neither particularly inventive, nor massively profitable for the effort - you just take some pictures and get some rupees - but in attempting it I found something that I'd been searching for for ages, which I viewed as much more of a reward than the gold rupee I was handed for actually completing it. The Koko cooking quests are literally just 'bring me A, B, and C', but through doing them you learn various recipes, and about the cooking mechanic at a relatively early point in the game. Countless other side quests have prodded me towards all sorts of parts of the world I'd probably never have discovered otherwise, and the ones I wasn't interested in I simply didn't do, and that was fine.

The only one that really irked me was feeding that guy's Rushroom addiction, but 55 is too damn many and I already had over 30 diamonds at that point. Aside from that, they've been relatively inoffensive, often illuminating, and occasionally entertaining. But the real meat and potatoes has always been with the shrine quests, which I've nearly always enjoyed hugely.

What I wish more was that some of the mini-games were offered slightly better rewards. I know heart pieces are a thing of the past (I mean, they're basically just Spirit Orbs now), but it would have been nice to have something more to celebrate my supremacy at BOOM-BAM GOLF than a silver rupee. I spent ages getting the best possible score, but I might have better used the sledgehammer to just crack open some of the ore deposits nearby. I had a lot of fun trying, but the reward didn't seem to understand how long those skills took to develop. I liked the horse armour for the horsey challenges a lot, so it would have been cool to have some other rewards on that scale; aesthetic but awesome.